Introduction
Telehealth is using communication and digital technologies such as mobile devices and computers to access health care services. The technologies can be used from the office or at home, and it keeps an individual in constant touch with medical practitioners. Telemedicine is a mode in which medical care is provided remotely using video chat. Telemedicine enables the patient to access health care options such as psychotherapy, consultations, and some emergency options (Amudha et al., 2017). Telemedicine is done through an application to access virtual care, such as assessing minor infections, enhancing speech and physical therapy, and mental health treatment. Telenursing is more like telehealth because it entails using the available technologies to provide nursing services to patients. The technology can be a computer or mobile phone, and the website or application can store the patient’s information (Amudha et al., 2017). Information such as patient conditions enables the nurses to point out specific defects and modes of rectifying them.
Pros and Cons of Telehealth, Telemedicine, and Telenursing
Telehealth and telenursing have the same cons and pros because they share the same ideologies. Telehealth saves cost, is convenient, and provides care to people with limitations to mobility or situated in rural areas. When individuals use telehealth of telenursing, they do not incur the cost of traveling to health vicinities. The tedious lines save them a lot of time since they can book an appointment virtually (Harkey et al., 2020). Their data is saved in the application, makes it easy for the medical practitioner to locate their records and make a probable diagnosis. The use of video calls can enable the doctor to point out visible physical examinations and prescribe the best medicine to use. For instance, a medic can see their patient rushes and tell them the best type of drug based on age and location of the rushes. In-person medicine during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic is risky; telehealth has enabled the patients to get medical services virtually, reducing the rate of infections. Telemedicine improves access to medical care, is cost-saving, is convenient, and eliminates the risk of picking up infections.
The downside of telehealth, telemedicine, and telenursing is that they do not enable individuals to get all types of services remotely. At times there is a need for individuals to present themselves physically to the health center. Some medical practices to diagnose a disease needs in-person visitation. Such visitations include imaging tests, blood work, and other diagnoses that need a hands-on approach (Harkey et al., 2020). Patients with cancer who need chemotherapy must visit the vicinity for the service because the online platform is limited for advice and drug prescriptions. Equally, the technical outlook has security challenges. Personal data can be hacked and patient security compromised because such information is sent electronically. The technological aspect of telehealth, telemedicine, and telenursing can experience delays (Harkey et al., 2020). For example, when a patient needs emergency care, accessing a telemedicine platform makes it impossible for a doctor to perform a lifesaving procedure or do digital laboratory tests. Weak internet connection in some parts of the globe makes it impossible to link the patient to the medics.
Implementation at Operation Level
Telehealth and Telenursing
At the operation level, telehealth and telenursing must accomplish things that do not compromise healthcare ethics. The medical council must guide patients’ needs and operational frameworks. The application must establish specific goals and make the healthcare sector look better. When the application is launched, the consideration is the funding source. The funding source must be clean and experienced in medical ethics (Chang et al., 2021). The acquisition cost associated with the technology should provide room for routine monitoring and upgrades.
Telehealth and telenursing must scale up technology that makes the healthcare sector look better and professional to be allowed to operate. The licensing and regulation board must ensure the site or application is easy to use and the interface is encrypted to reduce the hacking rate. Patient data is a critical concern, and HIPPA privacy and security guidelines dictate that electronic information must be end-to-end encrypted (Chang et al., 2021). Operational protocols should be programmed to transform healthcare and neutralize medical problems. Once it has passed all the guidelines, it can be operational in pilot status. The piloting makes it possible for the users to note its defects and rectify them before handing them over to the organizational level.
Telemedicine
To operationalize telemedicine, the software must ensure its funding source is clear. Medical ventures are very sensitive in that if a specific pharmaceutical organization funds the software, they might want to manipulate medical practitioners into advocating for their medicine. Secondly, the provider bench must be accountable for the overhead, and the engineering department should enable the networking and electrical infrastructure to support various devices. HIPPA officials will do a quality case review and then license it if it meets their minimum threshold (Chang et al., 2021). The software must ensure data transmitted electronically is end-to-end encrypted to ensure patient information security. Agencies such as the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Medical Staff Office (MSO) council must monitor the telemedicine application to note the regulatory landscape (Chang et al., 2021). Once it passes all these stages, then it can start operating.
Implementation at Organizational Level
The first level is establishing a workable strategy and setting goals for the telehealth, telemedicine, and telenursing application. It entails identifying key metrics to evaluate the possible success and failures of the program. Then the organization gathers a cross-functional team of staff to ensure the program provides the desired progress. The program will then move into the checking spectrum of essential protocols and reimbursement. The medical ethics and law regulate against improper exploitations of the programs, and the policies are aimed at ensuring authorities maintain compliance when implemented in the organization (Amudha et al., 2017). The program should fit in the organization to maximize its uptake. Therefore, staff members and patients are educated on how to use the program. Through the integration of patients and staff members, the programs can get into the final process of getting feedback from its users. The feedback allows the program to be used at the organizational level or engineered further to fit the concepts posed in the feedback.
Conclusion
Telehealth, telemedicine, and telenursing programs are meant to ease congestion in medical facilities. When the program is done with the utmost care, medical practitioners and patients enjoy the services and reduce the rate of infections emanating from in-face consultations. Some consultations can be done remotely, and it will ease congestion in the out-patients section. Some of the programs can store patient data hence integrating technological advancements from the abacus health record methods. It can also record the type of medication that a patient has taken in previous circumstances hence providing the medics with an insight into the best type of drug to prescribe. I would recommend that the implementation strategy be done with utmost care at the operational and organizational level since some programs aim to get critical information from medical vicinities and patient records. Encryption is paramount in ensuring there is privacy and that patients enjoy simple services at a lower price.
References
Amudha, R., Nalini, R., Alamelu, R., Badrinath, V., & Sharma, M. (2017). Telehealth and Telenursing-progression in healthcare practice. Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology, 10(8). Web.
Chang, M., Kuo, F., Lin, T., Li, C., & Lee, T. (2021). The intention and influence factors of nurses’ participation in telenursing. Informatics, 8(2). Web.
Harkey, L., Jung, S., Newton, E., & Patterson, A. (2020). Patient satisfaction with telehealth in rural settings: A systematic review. International Journal of Telerehabilitation, 12(2), 53-64. Web.