Potentially Impactful Topics
Telemedicine
This kind of medical service allows a provider to consult patients online. Clients can get immediate access to professional treatment, recommendations, education, and other services. Thus, organizations can care for a vast number of clients, reduce costs, and enhance outcomes by raising healthcare access.
Health Care Workforce Shortage
An issue that continues to negatively affect the healthcare system is the shortage of medical workers. Many organizations do not have enough professionals to treat the required number of patients or offer some services. Therefore, patient outcomes and quality of care decline, and workforce burnout increases.
Labor Disputes/Negotiations
Current issues in healthcare that organizations fail to address cause protests among medical workers. For example, problems with paychecks, employee retention, patient safety, unethical working conditions, and staffing make medical workers dispute and negotiate with employees or the government. As a result, patients cannot receive proper care in some facilities.
New Regulations Such as HIPAA
There are numerous issues and concerns in healthcare that make it challenging to provide high-quality services. Therefore, new regulations and guidelines address these problems, and while it may be difficult for medical workers to follow them at first, eventually, these interventions improve access to healthcare.
Medicare Pharmaceutical Coverage
It is hard to disagree that not all patients can afford the required medications. Therefore, the need for Medicare pharmaceutical coverage cannot be overestimated. This coverage helps people pay for the drugs prescribed to them and make sure that their treatment is effective and complete. Patients are protected against higher costs, which generally means that patient outcomes enhance significantly.
Physician-Patient Visits Via Email
Similar to telemedicine, e-visits can reduce healthcare workload because fewer patients will need in-person visits. As a result, people can email a physician and receive a detailed response with recommendations or advice to visit personally. Nevertheless, such a practice can also reduce outcomes and make medical workers dissatisfied because it is uncertain whether they should be paid for their responses.
Increased Emergency Room Utilization
Preventive and primary care efforts sometimes fail, which leads to an increased number of patients being sick enough and needing to access the emergency department. As a consequence, spending per person on the utilization of ER grows drastically, and emergency department workers’ burnout increases. What is more, some patients come to the ER without a proper reason, making other persons with actual emergency situations wait longer.
Increasing Health Premiums
Health premiums are the amount of money that people have to pay for their coverage, regardless of how often they access medical services. Generally, the effects of an increase in these premiums are negative – patients can encounter workplace issues or face other problems that will reduce their level of life.
Selected and Alternative Topic
The topic selected for the project is telemedicine since it probably has the most significant effect on the quality of services provided. In the age of active technological development, healthcare facilities need to take advantage of this opportunity and offer online consultations because the latter has great potential and can provide numerous benefits. For example, in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is not recommended for people to visit hospitals if their situation is not an emergency. Therefore, they can use email, video, or online portals to receive advice from their healthcare providers, describe symptoms or change treatment, discuss side effects of medications, make sure care tips are being followed correctly, and access many other services. The main beneficial effects are the lower workload and reduced burnout of medical workers because they do not have to communicate with patients in person. What is more, access to high-quality healthcare improves as distant, low-income, rural, or limited mobility patients, as well as individuals without insurance, are not left without consultations or help.
Shortage of medical workers is an alternative topic because this problem impacts healthcare in a very negative way. Rapid increases in chronic health concerns and the aging workforce contribute to the identified issue, and there are not many solutions to it. Many facilities lack nurses or physicians, which means that they can accept fewer patients and are unable to provide access to some examinations. Consequently, the quality of services declines, employee burnout rises, and patient safety is under question.
References
American Board of Telehealth. (2022). Telehealth: Defining 21st century care. American Telemedicine Association.
American Telemedicine Association [ATA]. (2022). About us.
Bakhtiar, M., Elbuluk, N., & Lipoff, J. B. (2020). The digital divide: How COVID-19’s telemedicine expansion could exacerbate disparities. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 83(5), e345-e346.
Chiron Health. (n.d.). Telemedicine related associations and agencies: Telemedicine Resources. Web.
Kane-Gill, S. L., & Rincon, F. (2019). Expansion of telemedicine services: Telepharmacy, telestroke, teledialysis, tele–emergency medicine. Critical Care Clinics, 35(3), 519-533.
Kennedy, J. (2022). ATA – American Telemedicine Association and COVID-19. Spencer Health Solutions.
Walker, C., Echternacht, H., & Brophy, P. D. (2019). Model for medical student introductory telemedicine education. Telemedicine and e-Health, 25(8), 717-723.
Wider, J. (2022).American Telemedicine Association announces launch of ATA action. Healthcare Innovation.