The significance of modern technology in the realm of the 21st century can hardly be overrated. The incorporation of technology into the key operations that used to be carried out manually allowed for a range of improvements in not only people’s personal lives but also the operational processes within a number of organizations. Because of the enhancement of the communication process, which the modern technologies allow for, the process of data transfer may occur at a significantly increased pace, which is essential for the specialist working in the realm of healthcare. Apart from improved and enhanced communication, modern technologies predetermine a series of improvements in the quality and speed of the corresponding services delivery, which the emergence of the phenomenon known as telemedicine is a graphic proof for.
The benefits, which telemedicine provides for both patients and staff are rather impressive. First and foremost, the approach in question will lead to major improvements in the process of communication between the staff members and both inpatients and outpatients; as a result, healthcare awareness rates will be increased significantly among the target audience. Specifically, the processes of the hand-off communication with the target population will be enhanced with the incorporation of the key information technology approaches and the corresponding devices into the framework of hospitals’ operations. In addition, the patients will benefit from an improved time management approach, which will allow healthcare specialists to define the facility, which the customer should be directed to. As a result, the transfer from one facility to another will be eliminated, and more options for an efficient time management strategy for addressing the patient’s health issue will be created.
Apart from patients, physicians will have an opportunity to rearrange their work in an adequate manner and, therefore, provide the required services in a more careful manner. Seeing that the concept of telemedicine invites the opportunity for teleconferences with patients via the corresponding devices, telemedicine will enable physicians to provide teleconsults. In addition, the provision of telemedicine principles will create premises for physicians to enhance healthcare awareness among outpatients.
It should be noted, though, that the latter prospect should be taken with a grain of salt, as teleconferences may slacken the process of a physician’s work considerably due to excessive details that patients may provide. However, although the point mentioned above could be viewed as rather dubious, the idea of physicians extending their clinical reach in order to enhance awareness among the target audience and, therefore, prevent a range of health issues among the designated population, is obviously a benefit of the telemedicine approach.
The financial issue, which telemedicine will also help address, deserves to be listed among the key benefits of the approach in question. To be more exact, the integration of technology into the realm of healthcare will promote a more considerate allocation of the existing resources and, therefore, a significant reduction of costs for the patient’s treatment.
Indeed, the opportunity of addressing the right specialist instantly with the help of telemedicine without visiting another physician first will help patients and the healthcare organizations save an impressive amount of money that they would have spent otherwise on the transfer, the readmissions of the patient, etc.: “New sensors for physiological monitoring are currently being developed, and the list will surely expand in the next few years” (Klonoff 486). Consequently, the approach under analysis can be deemed as rather adequate in terms of not only facilitating better healthcare services to the patient but also allocating the existing resources an making the most efficient use thereof possible.
Finally, the positive effects, which the promotion of telemedicine in the current framework of the healthcare system will have on the latter, deserve to be mentioned. There is no need to stress that the current healthcare system experiences a major shortage of staff; as a result, the quality of the services provided drops increasingly fast and to a rather drastic point. Combined with the rise in the amount of out- and inpatients, the specified tendency may lead to a quick deterioration of healthcare services, therefore, questioning the possibility of the healthcare system’s existence. The introduction of telemedicine, in its turn, will allow for increasing the number of patients per physician, thus, solving the issue of staff shortage within the field in question (Moeckli, Cram, Cunningham, and Reisinger 891).
Unfortunately, the concept of telemedicine not only has positive effects but also impairs the present-day healthcare opportunities when viewed from a certain perspective. Particularly, the issue regarding the financial assets of healthcare facilities needs to be brought up. First and most obvious, the costs, which the incorporation of telemedicine into the operation of the healthcare services statewide will require, deserve to be mentioned among the key problems.
Needless to say, the acquisition of numerous equipment items will trigger major costs, which the budgets of some hospitals may fail to cover. In addition to the complexities, which the allocation of the available financial resources will trigger, the necessity to create courses for the staff members to attend in order to learn to handle the new technology will need to be handled. It can be assumed that the issue in question is by far the least problematic, like outsourcing, along with an efficient model of information management based on knowledge sharing, which may help solve the problem. Finally, the necessity to train patients to use telemedicine devices for reporting about their health concerns will demand much patience and will probably require consistent training of less technologically savvy denizens of the population, such as elderly people.
Seeing that the project of telemedicine has a very big potential, yet healthcare specialists may face a range of issues in the course of putting the key postulates of telemedicine into practice, one will have to consider the avenues of its integration that are related to the infrastructure of healthcare services. Despite the fact that the specific set of infrastructure elements that will be required for integrating a telemedicine approach within a specific healthcare setting is bound to be entirely unique, several traditional components can be identified. First, the provision of a broadband Internet is essential to facilitating access to the key information concerning the facility’s resources and patients, as the experience of healthcare specialists in Africa shows:
The African Union and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) also have both recently initiated work to develop collaborative-health strategy processes to harmonize continental activity. With limited budgets, poor existing telecommunication infrastructure, and expensive bandwidth, governments of developing countries seek to learn from the experiences of the developed world-hoping to bypass the pilot project cycle of telemedicine. (Mars and Scott 178)
Herein the significance of the subject matter lies; it is crucial that the promising concept of telemedicine should not trick healthcare service into getting overexcited about the idea and disregarding in their euphoria the financial and infrastructure dilemmas, which the implementation of the telemedicine principles implies. In other words, an elaborate strategy that will help address the emerging issues and at the same time, make efficient use of the healthcare services’ assets will be imperative; otherwise, the project is unlikely to succeed.
Imaging technology on peripherals is another essential tool for the telemedicine approach, as it provides a clear image of a patient for a therapist or a physician to monitor and evaluate. A tool for consistent communication with technical support staff is also crucial to the quality of the telemedicine services provided by a healthcare facility. The imaging issue, in fact, is clearly one of the most controversial aspects of telemedicine, as the picture, which a physician sees, may be distorted as a result of program malfunctioning; therefore, there is a consistent threat for the patient to be misdiagnosed and provided with a wrong set of advice. The problem is likely to become all the more significant after the assessment of the quality of the software used by the target patients, as well as the skills of the latter in using digital tools for accessing healthcare services. The specified issue calls for a major awareness campaign, which will enhance computer literacy among not only the staff but also the members of a variety of communities.
In addition, a long-distance collaboration between the healthcare staff members and the idea of an Internet-based learning system may also cause major problems. While a study carried out in Africa has shown that long-distance studying is possible in a range of settings, it is only possible “where medical teams have been trained for the use of Internet-based tools” (Wamala and Augustine 3); consequently, the integration of the telemedicine approach into the current healthcare system will take several months at the very least.
By not only galvanizing the process of communication between the staff members and the patients, as well as among the staff members alone, and by providing the healthcare facilities with the latest equipment allowing for high precision of surgeries, technologies set the premises for the development of telemedicine. The latter, in its turn, is bound to move the process of healthcare services provided to an entirely new stage, therefore, advancing the current healthcare by improving the quality of the services provided. It should be noted, though, that certain factors may prevent the integration of the concept of telemedicine into the current healthcare system of the United States.
For instance, the budgeting approach, which is currently adopted for financing healthcare facilities, may require that major costs should be taken in the course of integrating information technologies and the related devices into the framework of healthcare officials. In addition, teaching healthcare staff to use the newly acquired technology in a proper manner may take a considerable amount of time. Moreover, healthcare staff may make mistakes at first due to the lack of familiarity with the technologies in question, which may drop the quality of the healthcare services, as well as increase the time elapsed for their delivery.
Nevertheless, the role of technology in diagnosing diseases, defining the key symptoms, evaluating the patient’s health, etc., should also be emphasized. Telemedicine, which emerged as a result of the attempt to incorporate information technology and medicine, can be considered one of the most promising beginnings of the era and is bound to affect the quality of the healthcare services providers on a number of levels.
Works Cited
Klonoff, David C. “Improved Outcomes from Diabetes Monitoring: The Benefits of Better Adherence, Therapy Adjustments, Patient Education, and Telemedicine Support.” Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology 6.3 (2012), 486–490. Print.
Mars, Maurice and Richard Scott. “Telemedicine Service Use: A New Metric.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 14(6), 178. Print.
Moeckli, Jane, Peter Cram, Cassie Cunningham and Heather Schacht Reisinger. “Staff Acceptance of a Telemedicine Intensive Care Unit Program: A Qualitative Study.” Journal of Critical Care 28 (2013): 890–901. Print.
Wamala, Dan S. and Kaddu Augustine. “A Meta-Analysis of Telemedicine Success in Africa.” Journal of Pathology Informatics 4.1 (2013), 6–12. Web.