Telemedicine

Ashley Hostetter

English Comp 1

Mrs. Simms

November 22, 2010

Telemedicine

                Telemedicine is the rapid growing way of providing healthcare through technology. It is “the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients' health status” (American Telemedicine Association).  This form of medicine is using not-so-new- technology like video, email, wireless phones, and other telecommunication devices to extend care to people in rural areas. This method began forty years ago but is growing rapidly and being used in operations at hospitals, physicians offices, people’s homes, and for the soldiers out on the field every day. Telemedicine is changing the way that people can receive healthcare and it could possibly help doctors reach people who would not be able to receive healthcare any other way.

There are many different services that telemedicine offers, some of those being: Specialist Referral Services, Patient Consultations, Remote Patient Monitoring, Medical Education, and Consumer Medical Health Information. Each of these services allows the physician to assess the patient in almost any way they need without the patient actually being present.  The Specialist Referral Service gives the physician the chance to diagnose the patient usually via a live consult or by sending diagnostic images or video to the physician for viewing. Usually this method is used so that a specialist may help a general practitioner make a diagnosis. The patient consultations may include an audio and live or still from a patient in a remote area to the health professional who would try to make a diagnosis and treatment plan.   The remote patient monitoring allows the physicians to use devices to monitor a patient without the patient being present. There is a form of remote patient monitoring called “home telehealth” where the patient is homebound but can be monitored by the physician. Their vital signs can be monitored like blood glucose or heart ECG. These devices are extremely helpful for the soldiers who are fighting in Iraq. The soldiers can wear the devices which monitor their vital signs and the doctor is able to see which soldier needs medical attention. Telemedicine offers medical education to those health professionals and physicians who are in remote locations; usually this is over the internet that the education is given. They are able to be updated on new and improved medical findings.  “Consumer medical and health information includes the use of the Internet for consumers to obtain specialized health information and on-line discussion groups to provide peer-to-peer support” (American Telemedicine Association). This allows people to learn from each other, provide support, and gain more knowledge about medical information.

            There are many benefits of telemedicine according to Dr. Jay Sanders and Dr. Rashid Bashsur. These doctors say that telemedicine will address three of the most prominent problems in U.S. healthcare, those being, “Uneven geographic distribution of health care resources throughout the country, inadequate access to quality, or any, health care on the part of certain segments of the population, including the under-privileged, the isolated and the confined, who are collectively referred to as the "underserved", and the unabating rise in the cost of care” (Milstein).  The savings that telemedicine can bring include the reduced travel costs for the specialists and the patients and savings on hospital care and accommodations. Telemedicine can also reduce the amount of waiting time for a patient that could cause more harm or even death, it can reduce the cost of another family member who would otherwise travel with the patient wherever the specialist was, and also can increase the number of patients that a specialist could treat because of the time saved by not having to physically travel.

“Among its many virtues is its potential: For lowering the cost of healthcare services, reducing healthcare services, reducing overall costs to patients, keeping patients at or close to home, and increasing both the availability and the quality of care, especially in rural and underserved areas. Lower healthcare costs will result from: earlier diagnosis and treatment of medically difficult conditions, need for fewer facilities, use of lower-cost rural facilities, less travel time and associated costs for healthcare providers. Overall savings to patients can result from earlier diagnosis and treatment, savings and travel to and from providers and reductions in lost work time" (Milstein)

There is another side of view on telemedicine which includes those who are not in agreement with it. Many of these people believe that it “constitutes no more than the introduction of another layer of technology into an already complex healthcare environment, with little or no demonstrable benefits either in terms of cost or quality of care” (Milstein).  They also believe that telemedicine is only the second best and that nothing can compare to actual face to face time with the doctor. They believe that it is not as personal as actually physically seeing the doctor and that the quality of care will not be the best.

Telemedicine has made many advancements in the last few years. This medical breakthrough can and will change the way people are cared for and receive health care. Although there may not be the personal aspect of healthcare to go along with telemedicine, it is better than no healthcare at all. This will give people in very rural areas better care than they have had before and doctors will be able to save more lives with this new technology. Telemedicine will give more people the care they need to live healthier and hopefully longer lives.