Introduction
Telehealth is the use of digital data and communications technology to facilitate and enhance long-distance medical healthcare coverage. It is a technology that promotes health-related training for patients and practitioners as well as aiding in health administration and public health. In their article entitled “Leveraging Telehealth to Improve Health Care Access in Rural America: It Takes More than Bandwidth,” Straminger and Arora (2020) highlight how telehealth can positively impact healthcare in the rural expanses. However, for this to be executed, internet connectivity to the areas must be excellent for residents and doctors to access the amenities easily.
Main body
The application of technology can help healthcare providers, practitioners, and institutions to increase services to remote healthcare and enhance its efficiency. The majority of people living in rural areas experience health-related difficulties. For instance, transportation concerns are associated with commuting for specialized treatment (Doarn & Merrell, 2019). Straminger and Arora (2020) state that due to this, telehealth has enabled remote hospitals to deliver quality, low-cost medical care. It helps the countryside patients, as they are no longer needed to drive lengthy journeys to receive advanced care. Today, physicians and semi-specialists can virtually visit rural patients and avail themselves of a wider variety of health services as a result of improved internet connectivity.
Some of the efficient healthcare services and initiatives which are delivered by telehealth technology in the countryside areas include Project ECHO, which was adopted by the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (Struminger & Arora, 2019). The aim was to develop virtual networks of information sharing to help in improving the ability of local doctors and other healthcare professionals in providing treatment for people with serious medical conditions (Raza et al., 2017). Telepharmacy, another telehealth service, is critical in enabling access to medicinal prescriptions for people using countryside healthcare and local pharmacies. Interpretation of various treatment services is conveyed to patients who understand little or no English on-demand via audio or visual technology.
Conclusion
In conclusion, telehealth is crucial in the 21st-century public health system. It is evident as it directly cuts the costs involved in traveling to receive the services, enhances the outreach of specialists to their rural patients, and improves rural providers’ capacity to tackle a wider variety of medical problems. Effective initiatives in underserved geographic areas to increase access to primary and specialty care require a structured approach that incorporates more efficient use of the internet and technology.
References
Doarn, C. R., & Merrell, R. C. (2019). Telemedicine, telehealth, and the public health good. Telemedicine and e-Health, 25(9), 773–774. Web.
Raza, M., Le, M. H., Aslam, N., Le, C. H., Le, N. T., & Le, T. L. (2017). Telehealth technology: Potentials, challenges and research directions for developing countries. International Conference on the Development of Biomedical Engineering in Vietnam, 523–528.
Struminger, B. B., & Arora, S. (2019). Leveraging telehealth to improve health care access in rural America: It takes more than bandwidth. Annals of Internal Medicine, 171(5), 376–377. Web.