DISCUSSION POST # 1 Ashlesha
“Telehealth is defined as using electronic information and telecommunication technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, health administration, and public health.” (HRSA, 2022)
Telehealth can be used for many different purposes in any place across the world with access to technology. Telehealth could provide care to countries and areas with limited knowledge and resources. For example, in a study by Gitaka et al. (2018), telehealth is helping to reduce newborn mortality rates in Bungoma County, Kenya. In County, it is estimated that 31 per 1000 births are live births. This study aimed at using telehealth to help reduce the neonatal mortality by 30%. Telehealth in this area and other areas with limited healthcare could help standardize healthcare worldwide, which means that no matter where you are, you can get quality care. This idea is far from current practice and would take extensive resources, including telecommunication methods. Many countries do not have electricity to plug your phone and tablet, which is a huge barrier to receiving telehealth anywhere in the world. A lack of trained professionals equipped to perform more intense healthcare is also a barrier in global telehealth. Telehealth could standardize healthcare worldwide with extensive resources and support it could change healthcare as we know it.
On the other hand, Telehealth not only improves the healthcare system but also holds the interconnection between global health networks, which can aid in humanitarian crises, monitoring and surveillance of emergencies, generating health data, and informing international aid programs and policies. (Kim et al., 2013).
DISCUSSION POST # 2 Julie
The impact that healthcare will have on a global scale with telehealth would be access. So, you’d be able to obviously reach your physician but not for everything. It wouldn’t be a permanent fix for long-distance treatment of any kind. Some disadvantages of telehealth include limitations with performing comprehensive physical examinations, possibilities for technical difficulties, security breaches, and regulatory barriers. Some critics to telehealth use worry that telehealth may adversely affect continuity of care, arguing that online interactions are impersonal and dangerous in that the virtual provider does not have the benefit of a complete history and physical examination to aid with diagnosis and treatment. Although face-to-face encounters are necessary in many circumstances in which auscultation or palpation is necessary, telehealth should be considered as an adjunct and best used to supplement in-person visits (Gajarawala and Pelkowski, 2022).
Telehealth is basically a tool to be able to increase access to our patients. Nothing that we do in healthcare is full proof and perfect we adapt and adjust especially depending on our patients that were seen. Telehealth is no different there are challenges that will need to overcome but it is a helpful tool to increase access for patients. The biggest challenge that telehealth has is regulations and guidelines. Telehealth also faces many legal and regulatory hurdles including large variations in rules, regulations, and guidelines for practice (Gajarawala and Pelkowski, 2022). Every insurance plan has their own concept of what’s covered including telehealth but at the state and government level this needs to be regulated as well.