Discuss one way a healthcare agency can use technology to provide staff with education.

Directions:

Healthcare facilities must ensure that staff are trained and able to meet the requirements of their position. Technology can be used to provide and document staff education.

• Discuss one way a healthcare agency can use technology to provide staff with education.
• Discuss one advantage and disadvantage explain your rationale for each.
• Discuss one way a healthcare agency can use technology to provide clients with education.
• Discuss one advantage and one disadvantage and explain your rationale for each.

Make sure to use subtitles to clearly identify each area you are covering.

Please make your initial post by midweek, and respond to at least two other student’s post by the end of the week. All posts require references AND in-text citations in full APA format. Information must be paraphrased and not quoted. Please check the Course Calendar for specific due dates. NOTE: Finalized postings must be submitted by deadlines. Any edits after deadline will be counted as late submissions and deducted accordingly. If you need to make any corrections for clarity’s sake only, you can write an addendum as a reply to yourself. The initial post will still be the one receiving full grade.

Make sure all posts are thorough, well-researched, and meet minimum requirements and word counts (see rubric)

 

Technology has brought about a massive and welcome change to the healthcare industry. Patients now have access to some of the best diagnostic tools,

New and cutting-edge treatments, and a myriad of minimally-invasive procedures resulting in less pain and quicker healing.

** Remote consultations with specialists, targeted treatments, and the availability of intuitive mobile apps have led to improved patient care and a superior healthcare experience overall.

Additionally, the availability of newer treatment technologies leading to better outcomes has enhanced the quality of life of the patients as well.

TELEMEDICINE / TELEHEALTH

Telemedicine takes the “” DIGITIZATION OF HEALTHCARE ” to its next logical step; letting patients CONSULT with specialist practically ANYWHERE in the world.

**. This is technology applied to the healthcare system TO OVERCOME DISTANCE BARRIERS AND FACILITATE CRITICAL CAREIN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS ; potentially saving lives.

** Telemedicine has made it possible for patients to use telemedical devices to receive home care and support using various applications and video telephony.

** In telemedicine, the store-and-forward feature helps transmit biosignals, medical images, and other data to a specialist to facilitate asynchronous consultations (which don’t require both parties to remain present or online at the same time).

** This can significantly reduce waiting time for patients; speeding up treatment delivery processes.

Telemedicine facilitates remote patient monitoring by healthcare professions. This can help manage chronic conditions effectively and economically with the help of various apps and devices.

Additionally, real-time interactive services make it possible for patients to consult electronically with healthcare providers.

This is essentially video conferencing that helps with diagnosis, management, counselling, and patient monitoring.

** Telemedicine aims to meet the needs of today’s healthcare consumers and has the capacity to revolutionize the delivery of healthcare.

It supports efforts to significantly improve the quality of healthcare by increasing accessibility and efficiency through reducing the need to travel, providing clinical support, overcoming geographic barriers, offering various types of communication devices, and improving patient outcomes.

Thus, given the current focus on efforts to contain costs, improve the delivery of care to all segments of the population, and meet consumer demand, telemedicine is an attractive tool to use for success in these areas.

** The use of telemedicine has been shown to allow for better long-term care management and patient satisfaction; it also offers a new means to locate health information and communicate with practitioners

(eg, via e-mail and interactive chats or videoconferences),

thereby increasing convenience for the patient and reducing the amount of potential travel required for both physician and patient.

** Web-based disease management programs encourage clients to assume greater responsibility for their own care, help healthcare providers to treat clients earlier (when they are not as ill), provide local

and less expensive services, extend scarce healthcare resources, enhance follow-up care, improve client access to services, and increase the accuracy and quality of patients’ medical records.

*** Telemedicine connects the convenience, low cost, and ready accessibility of health-related information and communication using the Internet and associated technologies.

** Beginning with the use of telephone consults, telemedicine has become more sophisticated with each advance in technology, and now involves telecommunication and computers to provide healthcare information and services to clients at multiple locations.

The application of this tool covers a wide and diverse scope, including:

a) online databases and tools to ensure standards of care,

b) critical pathways and patient outcomes,

c) computer-assisted diagnosis,

d) effective drug information and electronic prescription filling, and

e) enhanced availability of research data.

Through that information to healthcare professionals and consumers alike. Clinicians are able to handle more patients than traditional care models would typically allow, and with increased access and a more connected level of care, physicians and patients can work together to achieve their therapeutic goals, particularly in the home and hospice care environments.

*** Clinical Applications of Telemedicine

There are 4 clinical applications of telemedicine:

1) real-time interactive mode,

2) store-and-forward mode,

3) remote monitoring, and

4) communication via telephone.

** Telephone communication the most basic type of telemedicine that provides communication and remote care delivery.

In real-time telemedicine, a link between the involved individuals allows a real-time interaction to take place, but requires sending patient data from one site to a remote location, with an expert available to evaluate the data.

These real-time encounters use a specially equipped personal computer with a telephone line hook-up to allow people to meet face-to-face and/or view papers and images simultaneously, even though they are not in the same location.

* Videoconferencing is one example of this type of application.

Store and forward ensures that all information, including digital images, video, audio, and data, is captured, stored, and sent electronically to a specialist or clinician at another facility for interpretation and feedback.

* In remote monitoring, devices intelligently acknowledge the patient, record any abnormalities, and transmit data.

For example, a cardiac event monitoring device allows patients to record arrhythmia whenever they experience dyspnea, angina, palpitations, or unexplained syncope.

They can transmit the data over the phone and the ordering physician is notified immediately in the event of an abnormal rhythm.

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** The benefits of this type of technology allow clinicians to cut travel time without decreasing client contact. In addition, telemedicine services eliminate the need for visas for international patients.

## ADVANTAGES:::

Using telemedicine technology to remotely monitor health, such as through the use of smart surveillance cameras and analytical software, can be used with elderly clients to notify their caregivers of changes in activity, falls, or lack of movement.

** This type of care can reduce costs, potentially keep these older individuals in their own homes longer, and help physicians to more easily tailor treatment according to a patient’s choices and availability of services.

** This is particularly important as the 65-years-and-older population explodes without a concomitant increase in funds for healthcare services.

## Use of telemedicine also has the potential to help patients become more involved in their healthcare plan and increase their autonomy.

Patients who require wound care are another population that can be managed well at home through telemedicine applications.

For instance, telemedicine facilitates communication among:

a) a tissue viability nurse at a patient’s home who evaluates the patient’s condition via wound description and photographs that are entered into the database,

b) another tissue viability nurse working in an outpatient clinic at a different hospital, and

c) a physician who is highly interested in wound care working in a different healthcare facility.

** A Web-based solution for care coordination can integrate information from biometric measures and diagnostic tests and automatically alert clinician of panic values.

*** As an example, “Health Buddy,” an in-home communication device, can be used to provide heart failure disease management, with biometric measurements

(eg, heart rate and pattern, blood pressure, respiratory rate, fetal heart rate)

able to be monitored at another site. Women with high-risk pregnancies, individuals with diabetes, and cardiac and postoperative patients can also be monitored at home.

** The device prompts the appropriate patients to take their medicine and keep their legs elevated when sitting and monitors subjective reports of difficulty breathing or increased edema.

On the other end of the connection, nurses receive alerts when problems are indicated.

## DISADVANTAGES

Telemedicine is plagued by a number of liability concerns. First, there is the possibility that a patient may perceive it as inferior because the consulting professional does not perform a hands-on examination.

** Therefore, the distant provider, who has not personally examined the patient and may be relying on another presenter, might not be able to render a fully informed opinion or could end up with results that are inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading.

Major issues include questions of liability when information provided over the telephone is misinterpreted.

## Reimbursement and Licensure

These 2 items represent major barriers to the growth and practice of telemedicine and need to be addressed in the context of technology-enhanced interventions.

There have been incidents in which practitioners were eligible for reimbursement of the costs associated with telemedicine services and problems with how they are paid.

Further, although healthcare professionals are only licensed to practice within certain jurisdictions, telemedicine requires multiprovince licensure, both for their primary province and for the jurisdiction in which services are rendered.

Applications for licensure in different provinces can be lengthy and expensive, with the ultimate result being restricting access to services.

** There are different practice provisions across the country, and the uncertainties related to licensure may be subject to malpractice lawsuits and questions about how that liability might be distributed, which will continue to hamper access to telemedicine.

Other Barriers to Telemedicine

** Despite its advocates, many healthcare professionals have been slow to accept the application of telemedicine.

Some are simply resistant to change unless they see the potential benefits, while other reasons include the perception that telemedicine applications are not indicative of “real” nursing—this may stem from liability concerns and discomfort over not seeing a client face-to-face—and that telemedicine applications will eventually reduce the number of healthcare professionals needed and they fear job loss as more clients can be treated at home.

** There are threats to patient safety when telemedicine applications fail to render the same level of care as hands-on care or when problems occur with the use of electrical devices.

There is also lack of acceptance by users that may arise from discomfort with technology, the relationship with the provider, and concerns over security of information and confidentiality.

It is essential to educate the clients and increase public awareness. Healthcare professionals need to hold free information sessions for patients who are interested in more comprehensive information to aid them in making an informed decision and to promote a better understanding of such technology.

** Most discussions of telemedicine include the electronic health record as the primary means to make client data readily available and store diagnostic images.

Picture Archiving Communications Systems (PACS) permit remote access to diagnostic images at times that are convenient to physicians.

Health personnel need to shape the development of technological standards by determining the adequate image quality for diagnosis. Unfortunately, there has been insufficient funding for further development of PACS technology.

CONCLUSION::::

** Among other benefits, the use of telemedicine improves follow-up care, ensures patient access to services, and allows providers to treat patients at home and in remote areas.

** Some telemedicine applications include diagnostic evaluation, decision making, storage and dissemination of records, and education of healthcare professionals.

** Several factors are essential to establishing and using a telemedicine link:

Implementers should develop a plan that addresses areas such as compliance with standards, technical requirements, reimbursement, human factor considerations, and strategies to handle telecommunication breakdowns and how to deal with equipment malfunctions.

THEREFORE ,

Technological developments are better adopted into the healthcare fields in some parts of the world than others. Developed nations have been able to harness technology more efficiently for improved patient care; however, developing nations are catching up quickly.

Healthcare providers who haven’t yet adopted the tools technology places at their disposal are realizing their vast untapped potential and are making the changes and the investments required to streamline processes, lower costs, increase efficiency and most importantly, to improve quality of care.