Question

Week 4 Discussion: Telehealth Adoption

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Due: Post your initial response by Wednesday night at 11:59pm Pacific Time.

Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts by Sunday night at 11:59pm Pacific Time.

Telehealth Adoption

Why has telehealth adoption taken so long in the health-care industry when Skype, cell phones, and other video conferencing applications have been used in personal and business interactions for decades?

Response Posts: In addition to your original post, be sure to provide a meaningful response to at least two of your peers’ posts by the end of the week. In your responses to your peers, you might contribute to the discussions with your own original opinions or interpretation of the course materials.

Answer 1

Telehealth is a platform for the provision of health care facilities by using video conference.  It is the practice in a hospital or health center for the patient who are in a remote area and not able to get the health facilities on the nearby area. This is good idea but it is very rarely practice. The reasons are

1. Health care need physically present.

- Health care facilities can be properly provided by the health workers if the patient is physically present in the same place. The analysis and physical examination is very important to treat a patient properly. So during telehealth the patient is not present physically, it has a high chances for medical error.

2. Need of health worker near the patient.

There is need of health workers near the patient during the telehealthcare. It is because whatever the consulting doctor is giving advice through the telecommunication, the patient cannot able to understand and sometimes the consulting doctor want to see any examination or extra patient medical information, the health worker near the patient will be explained to the consult doctor for the effective health care. So it is not easy for the patient to hire one more health worker to consult doctor through telehealth.

3. Lack of internet facilities

It is not practicable in remote areas where internet facilities are not available properly. In this world still many places are there where there is no internet facilities. As telehealth is good idea for the patient who are not able to get the health facilities nearby, lack of internet facilities leads to not able to access the telehealth facilities.