Telehealth has increasingly become vital for hospitals and patients in the healthcare delivery processes, allowing providers to connect with patients irrespective of the distance and consult effectively. As such, most hospitals have adopted telehealth platforms because of the inherent benefits, including cost-effectiveness and virtual consulting, monitoring, individualized care, and convenience.
The hospital has adopted telehealth for its clinical neurological cases. Today, the practice has matured, and the hospital can provide evidence-based benefits associated with the telehealth program. Available evidence support this claim observed in other facilities using neurological and stroke telehealth programs (Rubin, Wellik, Channer, & Demaerschalk, 2013). Also, health economic analyses that have been conducted have demonstrated long-term cost-benefits of the program (Rubin et al., 2013).
Opportunities to implement a telehealth program at the hospital
The hospital currently offers numerous specialties, including pediatric, burning center, trauma center, and advance cardiovascular. This implies that the facility has numerous opportunities to embrace telehealth platforms to deliver care under these specialties.
Although the hospital currently uses teleneurology, it yet exploits some opportunities, which come with the implementation of the program. For instance, there are more opportunities not yet explored beyond the current acute ischemic stroke. Evidence suggests that some benefits of teleneurology can be noted in rehabilitation telehealth.
That is, telerehabilitation and prehospital care can be delivered beyond the tPA assessment and administration (Wechsler et al., 2013). Telerehabilitation would offer efficient post-acute care for disabled patients in remote locations so that they do not have to visit the hospital because of their impaired mobility (Wechsler et al., 2013). Moreover, physicians can enhance service delivery cost-effectively. Telehealth can also support neurological treatments for seriously ill patients (Wechsler et al., 2013).
Teleneurology can assist the hospital to revamp its screening, consenting, treatment processes, and follow clinical trials. Patient identification will be significantly improved while patient documentation processes will eliminate errors and missing data.
The hospital also has opportunities to introduce other telehealth technologies to support its current care services. First, remote monitoring systems would assist the hospital to ensure sustained or periodic clinical monitoring and evaluation of patients remotely. Second, the hospital can also adopt telepharmacy to provide distance pharmaceutical care for patients.
Third, tele-ICU has been successfully implemented in other hospitals. Hence, the hospital can also use it to support critical care physicians and nurses located in remote areas. Fourth, teleradiology can allow the hospital to collect images and related data for analysis from patients in different locations (Weinstein, Krupinski, López, & Joseph, 2014). Fifth, opportunities also exist in remote consultation. For instance, the hospital can enhance care capacity for chronic conditions, such as HIV, diabetes, heart diseases, and obesity among others (Wood, et al., 2016).
Finally, the inclusion of cybersurgery would allow the hospital to perform surgical procedures on remote patients (Schumacher, 2015).
Benefits of telehealth programs
The hospital has demonstrated some of the benefits derived from telehealth programs. Notably, they include overcoming geographical distance; improving access to healthcare, especially among patients with mobility challenges; reducing costs of care; enhancing referral processes; reducing unwarranted referrals; personalized care; and improve care quality to reduce readmission (Isabalija, Mbarika, & Kituyi, 2013).
While the hospital can embrace some of these telehealth opportunities, it will have to face some notable drawbacks. For instance, reimbursement for the use of telehealth differs significantly across states. Besides, change management and implementation issues are most likely to arise. Overall, telehealth offers unique opportunities that every hospital should consider.
References
Isabalija, S. R., Mbarika, V., & Kituyi, G. M. (2013). A Framework for Sustainable Implementation of E-Medicine in Transitioning Countries. International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications, 2013, 1-12.
Rubin, M. N., Wellik, K. E., Channer, D. D., & Demaerschalk, B. M. (2013). Systematic Review of Teleneurology. Neurohospitalist, 3(3), 120–124. DOI: 10.1177/1941874413483754.
Schumacher, A. (2015). Telehealth: Current Barriers, Potential. Ohio State Law Journal, 76(2), 409-439.
Wechsler, L. R., Tsao, J. W., Levine, S. R., Swain-Eng, R. J., Adams, R. J., Demaerschalk, B. M.,… Alphonso, A. L. (2013). Teleneurology Applications. Neurology, 80(7), 670–676. DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e3182823361.
Weinstein, R. S., Krupinski, E. A., López, A. M., & Joseph, B. (2014). Telemedicine, Telehealth, and Mobile Health Applications That Work: Opportunities and Barriers. American Journal of Medicine, 127(3), 183-7. DOI: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2013.09.032.
Wood, B. R., Unruh, K. T., Martinez-Paz, N., Annese, M., Ramers, C. B., Harrington, R. D.,… Spach, D. H. (2016). Impact of a Telehealth Program That Delivers Remote Consultation and Longitudinal Mentorship to Community HIV Providers. Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 1-30. DOI: 10.1093/ofid/ofw123.