Introduction
The paper is a critical examination of the concept of e-medicine and communication. With technological advancement changing rapidly, all facets of human life as well as most sectors of medical. With the notion that not adopting technology will leave organization at a disadvantage in this competitive world, health care sectors have adopted e-medicine. It is important for the relevant stakeholders to clearly know the mechanisms of the system and teaching others.
As suggested by Hattersley & McJannet, 2004 information sharing between patients and physicians, doctors and other healthcare professional is significant. The speed, convenience as well as reliability of the same have been thought equality important, this being the catalyst to adoption of e-medicine. Presently, healthcare facilities and the human resource who work with patients have resorted to using electronic medical report rather than writing on hard paper as they share medical information with patients.
This concept of using electronic medical reporting has been termed as electronic medicine. A typical example of e-medicine is where a physician who is separated by a long distance from a patient is capable of diagnosing him through video conferencing making it unnecessary for the professional or either the patient to travel the distance which could be costly and tiresome.
Videoconferencing in medicine
Videoconferencing has been variously defined but all definition seems to hold the same view; that of “interactive telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously, using their PCs irrespective of the distance” (Somal et al. 2009).
In medical sectors, videoconferencing support consultation, sharing of medical images, and diagnosis in real time. As stated previously, it is possible for medical professionals to not only diagnosis see a patient who is separated from the medical professional by geographical distance but also monitor his/her health progress after being attended for (Hattersley & McJannet, 2004).
Similarly, it is possible through videoconferencing for medics who are far apart from each other to share skills and knowledge especially during operations in theater rooms.
Doctors who are specialist for instance in heart surgery in United States of America can help their counterpart in less developing countries especially in Africa successfully execute surgery provided medical equipment are available. This has cut down on travelling, as well as cost incurred while travelling; the former which has been more often than not a cause of fatigue (Somal et al. 2009).
Another area in medicine communication greatly impacted by videoconferencing is clinical interviews. Through this technique, the monotonous face to face style of communication has been supplemented by it.
Through videoconferencing medical professional have not only be in a position to talk with their patients but also see them together with their family. On the same note, healthcare sectors in addition to using print media to reach to the target audiences, videoconferencing provides an effective interaction between medical professionals and the target audience.
It is worth noting that the media uses internet connection that needs to be well supported at both ends and co-ordination is important to ensure that communication is smooth. As suggested by the influence of videoconferencing, there are various audiences that are of target.
Among them include patients, friends and relatives living with the patients, managers, administrators of healthcare facilities, medical professionals, government officials, local citizens to mention but a few. The context within which videoconferencing operates varies but it is applicable where geographic distance between the involved parties s an issue.
Among the goals of videoconferencing is supplementing face to face interaction between the respective audiences and the medical professionals. Similarly, it aims at cutting down cost of travelling to share medical information, enhance reliability, convenience and more importantly offers an avenue of provision of real time information.
It is worth noting that the message or information being shared entails both audio as well as visual contents (Wileman, 1993). This makes the system closely related to face to face interaction. In terms of feedback, the technology provides the audience with an opportunity to instantly ask questions and at the same time are answered immediately just like in face to face interaction.
Advantages and disadvantages
Videoconferencing advantages include; allowing improved health status of the local population due to the fact that they are readily provided with vital information supporting healthy living, easy transmitting of such telemetric information as blood pressure, heart beat rates, increased rate of accessibility to better and quality medical services, tremendous cost cutting, ability to immediately respond as compared to other means of sharing information such as print media and letters (Somal et al.,2009).
More importantly, it is a reliable means of sharing information between the relevant stakeholders especially if geographic distance is an issue. The system has been hailed to encompass a number of communication attributes especially psychological and physical ones hence deducing how the other party is feeling about the issue at hand.
According to Wileman, 1993 video conferencing can be seriously affected by signal latency as a result of distance, the initial cost of installation is high, there is also a problem in maintaining eye contact which is a vital part of communication, there are a number of medical professional as well as relevant stakeholders especially in developing countries who are not capable of utilizing the whole system effectively.
Conclusion
From the review of e-medicine, it is evident that technological innovation has played a major role in shaping medical sector. Videoconferencing is one such system that has been used in medicine. It has a number of advantages for instance promoting deliveries of real time information, convenience among other. However, it is associated with some pitfalls such as higher cost of initial installation and lack of adequate knowledge on how it operates from the majority of the stakeholders.
References
Hattersley, M & McJannet, L. (2004). Management Communication Principles and practice. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Somal, K. et al. (2009). “Computer and internet use by ophthalmologists and trainees in an academic centre”. Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, 44 (3): 265.
Wileman, R. (1993). Visual communicating. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, Inc.