Telepractice Paper

Telehealth is an innovative approach to health care that is rapidly expanding in all areas of patient care. It has been shown to be cost effective and is rapidly being integrated into everyday practices from clinics, hospitals, court systems, school systems and even the local drug store.

Telehealth is remote exchange of data between a patient and doctor that facilitate in better diagnosis of patients and monitoring typically used to support patients with long term conditions.

Today’s speech pathologists are faced with many challenges. However, the field of speech therapy is unique in that when the speech pathologist overcomes a challenges is more often that not a significant triumph in the patients life. It is of massive importance for speech therapist have the following traits good interpersonal skills, the ability to take another’s perspective and problem solving skills.

During my interview with Speech Pathologist, Deborah Kirsch, I learned countless details about the Speech Pathology career field. When we first began talking, I learned that Mrs. Kirsch works out of a company called “Professional Therapy Services”, where she is contracted out to work for “Eunice Smith Nursing Home” which is located in Alton, Illinois. She has been working at this facility for about a year. She is a newly found graduate from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and she graduated in May 2011. Another thing that I learned about Mrs. Kirsch is that she originally did not go to school to become a speech pathologist, this was a career that she found later in life. After she had graduated from SIUE, the first time with a bachelors in Psychiatry, she started working at a nursing home around this area. She came to know a Speech Pathologist that worked there and she quickly found the field very fascinating. She had always been driven to help others, and she witnessed some of the exercises being done with individuals at the nursing home and decided to go back to school to get her masters in Speech Pathology.

The opportunity to observe the work overview of a Speech Pathologist, has tremendously solidified my interest in this field. At the Diana Rogovin Speech Center at Brooklyn College, I observed clients of various ages with different speech language disorders including articulation, language, voice, fluency and accent modification. Observing clinicians at the speech center gave me the opportunity to learn how important client-clinician interaction is for the session and how essential it is to build a good relationship with the client. Although I learned the

Keaunna Knox has been a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) since 2007, and has worked ever since 2000 with children with special needs who had speech and language disorders. She began as an “Instructional/Speech Aide” at Pasadena Unified School District working with children with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities. All the students she worked with had speech and language disorders, and, since the Districts therapy was overloaded Keaunna implemented the communication goals she wrote. Based on that experience and many others, Keaunna decided to enroll at Cal State Los Angeles to pursue her professional career in teaching. She received her Master’s in Mild-Moderate Disabilities in Special Education from Cal State Los Angeles and a second

What is telemedicine? According to the American Telemedicine Association, “Formally defined, telemedicine is 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.” They

An issue frequently debated by the legislature concerns funding of various social/public programs which include speech-language pathology services. As a child who suffered from an auditory processing disorder, and a future licensed Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), I know all too well how important SLP services are for children. Currently, funding for social/public programs to include Speech-Language Pathology services in the United States is not adequate for children with learning disabilities and the legislature must act to remedy this.

This occurs due to diminished mental capacity, structural abnormalities such as unrepaired cleft palates, or lack of commitment on the part of the patient. An additional challenge sometimes faced by a school based SLP is dealing with difficult parents and rigid and sometimes unrealistic district expectations. However, despite the challenges faced by speech pathologists, the field of study continues to grow with an expectation of a 21% increase by 2024 (“Speech-Language Pathologists”). While jobs as an SLP are readily available nationwide in a variety of different settings, the key areas of growth in the field are in the states of Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, New York, and Ohio (“Best”). The growth of the field is due largely in part to people’s increased awareness of the benefits of treatment by a speech pathologist. SLPs provide treatments which allow individuals to function better in daily life. For example, SLPs in the education field provide techniques and strategies to help students function better both in the classroom and socially. SLPs in the medical field provide support in regaining the ability to accomplish daily tasks, safely ingest solid foods, and interact socially with family and

Interprofessional collaboration is an important component in any health care. According to the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA) Code of Ethics, Individuals shall uphold the dignity and autonomy of the professions, maintain collaborative and harmonious interprofessional and intraprofessional relationships, and accept the professions’ self-imposed standards (ASHA, 2016). With this in mind, it is our duty as future speech-language pathologist (SLPs) to adhere to this principle. Clinicians should utilize every resource available to assist his/her client. This even includes if the client needs a referral to a different specialist.

In this position he or she is adherent to assessment, endowment, reestablishment, advocate and prevention services for individuals with a nature of language impairment, intonation, dialect, cognitive-communicative or a swallowing disarray. Communications may be expressed verbal or nonverbal and combines with listening, vocalizing, use sign language, reading, and writing in all domains of communication (Glover, McCormack & Smith, 2015). The qualified person who administers the particular services is called a speech therapist, speech-pathologist, speech-language therapists or speech clinician. However, he or she comply with advocacy, fact-finding, program codification and directing, oversighting, product advancement and valuation, including dialogue with families, caretaker, instructors, other rehabilitation specialist, administrators, health professionals and others like other careers in the Human Service or Case management field.

The participation model begins by identifying the participation patterns and communication needs where the clinician then identifies participation barriers (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013, p. 108). SLP’s are then taught to differentiate between assessing opportunity barriers and assessing access barriers in the concept that the working clinician evaluates policy, practice, facilitator skill, facilitator knowledge, attitude, and current communication (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013, p. 108). The client’s current communication assessment includes a full assessment of their possible potential to increase natural abilities, an assessment of potential environmental adaptations, and an assessment of the potential to utilize AAC systems or devices (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013, p. 108). Once there has been a thorough analysis the speech language pathologist should plan and implement interventions that will span across the present and the future with a follow up to determine how effective the intervention has been in advancing a client’s participation (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013, p.

Regarding voice technology, which is a tool health care provider are attempting to adopt but are having a difficult time because it is a huge change in the way things have been done since the health care field was created. Speech technology gives physicians the opportunity to spend time at the bedside of the patient rather than

Telemedicine is the use telecommunications and information technology to provide healthcare to patients located in the remote or distant locations. For example: people staying in the mountainous areas or islands can get medical services right at their home with the help of smart devices or patients who cannot go to the hospital for some reason.

Telenursing uses the technology for the nurses to do follow-up care with patients. The modern approach of follow-up care comforts the patient. Telenursing, the use of technology to allow nursing from a geographic distance, is used in many different settings including hospitals, home care, and other health related facilities. Telenursing is communicated via many different devices of technology. These are many different advantages in using telenursing rather than disadvantages. There are many different organizations involved in developing telenursing.