Telemedicine attracts the attention of health care providers as a new cost-efficient approach to delivering health care without focusing on borders or financial limits that are associated with insurance. In his article “Telemedicine Is a Game-Changer for Patients, the System”, Bill Frist notes that telemedicine as a way of promoting the remote care and services is observed today in rural areas, where patients have no many opportunities to receive the necessary specialty consultations, and it can be actively used in both urban and rural territories of the United States if the regulatory barriers are overcome (Frist par. 1-4).
From this point, the main advantages of telemedicine are its availability and accessibility. Frist states that those Americans who cannot afford the expensive health care services or have to seek for the assistance in emergency departments because of the shortage of primary care providers are in need of telemedicine as an alternative effective and cost-efficient approach to care delivery (Frist par. 6). Frist claims that to make the health care really affordable, it is necessary to avoid multiple regulatory barriers and improve legislation and policies in the states regarding the provision of care through telemedicine tools because telemedicine can be considered as one of widely available tools to practice medicine (Frist par. 8). Thus, referring to advantages of telemedicine, it is possible to agree with Frist’s view.
In his article, Frist points at the strengths of telemedicine and proposes the way of improving the policies in the field of healthcare in order to make telemedicine more available and advantageous for the Americans. Frist’s approach and focus on telemedicine as a way to make the care delivery accessible and cheap can be discussed as reasonable because telemedicine contributes to decreasing the overwhelming flows of patients who want to receive the immediate assistance in emergency departments and consultations of primary care providers (Hoyt and Yoshihashi 434). As a result, the issue of professionals’ shortages becomes effectively addressed, especially in rural regions.
In addition, in spite of the costs of information and communication technologies, telemedicine is potentially the low-cost alternative to the patients’ visits for consultation. Frist assumes that a telemedicine visit can cost around $40 for a person in the future (Frist par. 6).
Such costs are more attractive for persons from the rural territories or for the elderly individuals as well as for those persons with chronic diseases because they need the on-going health care monitoring (Hoyt and Yoshihashi 424). Moreover, health care specialists receive the perfect opportunity to distinguish between the acute and chronic cases effectively while being able to provide the telemedicine consultations for patients depending on their state and conditions.
Thus, telemedicine can be discussed as an effective tool in order to improve the quality of the health care delivery in the United States while focusing on the provision of cost-effective offers for patients depending on their diagnosis and state. From this point, the arguments supported by Frist seem to be convincing because the author of the article pays much attention to the necessity of changing the current policies and legislation in order to ensure the changes of the overall approach to using the telemedicine tools in the country. In this context, telemedicine can guarantee the avoidance of professionals’ burnout and increases in the patient satisfaction associated with the improved quality of the proposed care.
Works Cited
Frist, Bill. Telemedicine Is a Game-Changer for Patients, the System. 2015. Web.
Hoyt, Robert, and Ann Yoshihashi. Health Informatics: Practical Guide for Healthcare and Information Technology Professionals. New York: Lulu, 2014. Print.