Challenges in Rural Communities A challenge that many rural communities are dealing with is the lack of primary care physicians, specialist, understaffed hospitals, and transportation. “Only about ten percent of physicians practice in rural America despite the fact that nearly one-fourth of the population lives in these areas” (National Rural Health Association [NHRA], n.d., para. 2). Although, there are programs designed to improve patients access to hospitals and physicians in rural areas, provider access for these patients remains a barrier. Technology can bridge some of the gaps of care for these patients and it can be beneficial in many ways. With enhanced technology, primary care physicians and patients will be able to have support, access to quality care, improvement in self-management skills, which ultimately, will improve a patient’s health. To assist physicians with delivery of optimal care and for patients to be able to go to scheduled wellness visits with physicians, a new approach to solving rural health barriers are needed. Telecommunications There are several forms of technology that is used to monitor, assist patients with self-care management, assist physicians with delivering care to their patients, including consultation with specialist, and overcoming barriers with transportation. “60% of the healthcare executives, physicians, and nurses in this inaugural survey said that telemedicine was a high priority for 2015“ (Vockley, 2015, para. 7) Telemedicine
Telemedicine is defined as, “The use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve a patient’s clinical health status. Telemedicine includes a growing variety of applications and services using two-way video, email, smart phones, wireless tools and other forms of telecommunications technology” (“What is Telemedicine”, n.d)
Technology has revolutionized society, including the practice of nursing. Today, nursing implements technology into their practice requiring both nurse practitioners and IT technicians. From desktop computers to portable laptops, smartphones, and tablets, this advancement allows nurses to work out of the office and on-the-go. This includes improving access to quality health care, an objective of the Healthy People 2020. (The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2015) This objective involves many health communication and health IT that can create a positive impact on health and health care team, including the option for nurses to provide and help patients virtually with telehealth. It’s called telenursing.
Telemedicine is an emerging technology that with increasing internet speeds and the widespread usage of satellite broadband will serve our population at a reduced cost. Telemedicine that is already in use in the Golden Triangle will allow Physicians to see their patients, allow nurses to perform assessments, and medications to be prescribed. Telemedicine will also allow Doctors to assist the APRN with difficult diagnoses and create advanced treatment plans. While using this technology in these remote clinics would improve our underserved population access it does nothing to make them use the clinics.
As a conclusion, telemedicine will continue to be a dynamic influence within the profession of medicine. Overall, the benefits of this innovation will be in two primary areas which are medical benefits and cost benefits. First, as we know, telemedicine is a logical extension of the growth of the technological and technical aspects of health care. The medical benefits of an active telemedicine program are related to how professionals use the technology. A modification of a famous analogy used in educational research when applied to telemedicine summarizes the medical impact of telemedicine (“University of Utah Health Care | Salt Lake City, Utah,” n.d.).
On the technology front, I highlight, the area that arouses more interest among leaders of health care, and insurance is to telemedicine. The health institutions are to grow and reduce costs with quality health care, plus the users of this service will enjoy the benefits that this new technology opens in the area of medical practice and other health care.
With healthcare ever changing and technology expanding at a rapid pace patients are able to experience new opportunities in health care services. Telemedicine transmits vital health care information by way of telecommunication and information technology to the health care recipients in distant areas from medical clinics and hospitals. Telemedicine is promoted and is gaining support for its ability to improve accessibility to health care with lower cost and easier accessibility to gain quality medical services. Both telemedicine and telehealth are two areas that are developing and viewed as progressively attractive tools in the health care field. In the technologies of telehealth and telemedicine health care services are provided by medical professionals who specialize in a situation where the location is the primary factor; by using information technology, they can receive vital input about a patient’s medical condition from specialists (Wade, Karnon, Elshaug, & Hiller, 2010). Telemedicine gives the opportunity for sharing medical knowledge between nurse and technician, specialist and medical doctors, and sub-specialist and specialists. Information technology encourages teamwork among health care professionals and different locations through telecommunications. Telecommunications is offering a solution to the need for knowledge sharing among health care professionals. This paper will address the usefulness of telemedicine in neurology, pain management, hospitals, clinics,
Telemedicine is an excellent patient care method which makes use of electronic communication. This is especially helpful when patients live a good distance away from hospitals or for those who prefer specific doctors not in immediate reach. Telemedicine is a part of telehealth which includes health services especially in remote areas which also includes education for consumers and support in terms of management. This branch of medicine plays an extremely significant role in places where there are logistical difficulties, extremes of climate, or scarce population where long distance communication may be the only solution for efficient health services
Health care faces many obstacles such increasing costs and demands coupled with reduced providers. A primary solution to these problems is telemedicine. Telemedicine is the delivery of health care services and sharing of medical information through communication technology. All components of health care delivery are included in telemedicine – prevention, diagnosis, monitoring and healing.Through the sharing of data and information telemedicine has the potential to decrease costs, increase access to care and ultimately improve community health and save lives. Health care will see staffing shortages as baby boomers retire and also need care as they age. Telemedicine provides a cost-effective solution providing patients with more immediate access to care, increased involvement in their care and earlier recognition of signs and symptoms of disease.
TAs Technology grows, time and execution of patient services are an essential part of the health care system. Telephonic communication plays a key role in patient care by reducing appointment wait times and addressing patient needs in real-time. In the past before telephonic, you would see an abundance of walk-in patient in the emergency room with questions that would have been answered over the phone. Reducing the amount of walk-in patient is not the only benefit of telephonic communication. Healthcare cost is also reduced tremendously due to telephonic. Patients don’t have to feel the burden of having to pay high cost services by walking into an emergency room. However, even though, these are all great improvements in our health care system,
The use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients’ health status is the definition of telemedicine (Aust, 2012). As a leader in telemedicine Mayo Clinic originally formed telemedicine for outreach of neurological surgery needs such as strokes this progressed to specialized needs at facilities within the mayo system for specialists available such as pulmonology in the absence of these physicians. Although Mayo is unable to bill Medicare for these costs the outreach continued with EICU. This poses a barrier to continued technological improvements. Currently options such as tele stroke are provided to rural hospitals at a with a fee for service (Jayanthi, 2016).
The use of telemedicine technology has immensely grown in popularity with far-reaching applications worldwide. Many developed countries have laws that focus on the use of telemedicine as a tool for streamlining patient care and reducing healthcare costs. Global telemedicine is expected to assist healthcare providers worldwide to improve patient care with state-of-art software, products, and
Telemedicine improves quality of patient care in rural areas through more advanced treatments and decreased response time. Telemedicine eliminates obstacles to
There are at least two types of telemedicine described by the literature. These include that in which medical data is acquired and later transmitted without the need for both parties to be present at the same time, “Store-and-Forward” (i.e. electronic medical records, email), and “Interactive” where real-time interaction occurs between the health care provider and the patient. The American Medical Association has also described remote monitoring through devices as yet a third category of telemedicine category.
Today’s technology allows telenursing care to be provided in formats beyond nurse staffed telephone triage lines. Video cameras, the internet, and the installation of monitoring equipment in a patient’s home increases the range of nursing services that can be provided to patients outside of acute care facilities, and
Providing Health Care in a Rural Setting: Effective Health Care Methods Romina Alanis Escano & Kayla Benedict Pearl City High School February 24, 2015