Thursday, January 31, 2019

Useful Information Regarding Telehealth Adoption

By Margaret Price


It is no doubt that technology is taking over the world. Today, it is not possible to name any single industry or sector that does not make use of technology in its operations. However, some sectors and industries have adopted technology at a higher rate and level than others. Even those that are slow in technological adoption are catching on. Here are facts regarding telehealth.

Among the sectors in which technology is widely applied is the medicine sector. In existence currently is an emergent field referred to as tele-health. There is an elaborate application and definition of tele-health. It is described as the employment of electronic information systems and telecommunication in supporting health activities. According to the definition, the technologies are used in supporting long distance clinical care, health administration, professional health related public health, and education.

Tele-health makes use of technologies for distribution of services related to health. Here, advice, reminders, interventions, remote admissions, monitoring, education, clinician-patient care and contact are possible over long distances. In addition, practitioners can also make use of tele-health for presentations, supervision over others, and meetings. This field also includes the incorporation of health data and healthcare systems management.

In most instances, the terms telemedicine and tele-health are used interchangeably. It is however critical to know that the two are used in reference to somewhat different concepts. Whereas telemedicine is comparatively shallower in its description since it only defines remote clinical services for instance diagnosis and monitoring, tele-health on the other side is deeper.

On the other hand, tele-health includes all aspects of telemedicine and on top of that, it includes promotive, curative, and preventative care delivery. Because of the deeper concept and definition that tele-health involves, the term is more preferable over telemedicine. Some of the aspects that are included in tele-health are counseling, disaster management, home health, dentistry, chronic disease management and monitoring, and physical and occupational therapy. Consumer and professional education is also an aspect of tele-health.

For success in tele-health, one ought to meet some given prerequisites among them being presence of a reliable and strong broadband connectivity. Broadband signal transmission requires some infrastructure including microwaves, optic fiber, wires, and cables. Quality and volume of communication between the two parties involved is determined by bandwidth quality. Most patients are limited from purchasing the infrastructure due to the price of acquisition.

With technology getting increasingly accessible, the application of tele-health has become easier to realize. Apart from access to the proper infrastructure, however, there exist a number of aspects that have to be attended to by health facilities before availing the services to patients. One such factor is the performance of a needs assessment.

Health facilities that have underutilized facilities are the ones in the best position to provide this service to patients. Implementing tele-health can help to use the underutilized resources better. It is best to determine if the area has some collaborators present. Where collaborators are present, all the parties can unanimously join efforts to provide the service as whole. In providing tele-health the aim should be to solve a certain social problem.




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