Rural School Based Telehealth Clinics

Introduction

Telehealth innovations facilitate the capability of providing healthcare through telecommunications technology. These are implements that can be employed to address as well as enhance the health status of children in schools. In the contemporary, rural areas within the United States are expanses that are still lacking proper and adequate healthcare. To address and transform this, school-based telehealth care has been unveiled and instituted as means of rendering care to children. In particular, school-based health clinics make the most of telemedicine technology to provide children with the accessibility to primary healthcare services (Kim, 2013). The purpose of this essay is to delineate the manner in which rural school-centered telehealth clinics can be employed in the nursing field to deliver suitable healthcare to children.

Précis

The topic argued, discussed and deliberated in the essay encompasses the establishment and efficacy of rural school-based telehealth clinics. The statement of focus in the article by Reynolds and Maughan (2015), encompasses the utilization of telehealth technologies and in particular rural-based telehealth clinics by nurses within the school settings to not only address but at the same time to enhance health status of children in schools around the rural regions. A key element that was learnt from the article is that telehealth is an implement that can enhance care in an inventive and efficacious manner. Schools across the nations and particularly in the rural regions will be able to provide better healthcare to further meet the necessities of children in their care. The information contained within the article is significant to my field of study because it outlines one of the key ways in which medical care and services can be rendered to patients in the rural regions in an effective, adequate and cost-effective manner. This is an element that is missing in the present day and would improve the health status of these individuals in overall.

Mind Map Discussion

Educational facilities and establishments play a fundamental role with regard to the health of children. Within such settings, the school nurses operate as the leaders as well as the directors of the healthcare that is rendered to the students. Nonetheless, the downside to this is that some children may necessitate additional medical care and attention that go beyond what such school nurses are capable and sanctioned to provide. Regrettably, numerous institutes lack the medical resources that are essential in meeting the health needs of their students. Telehealth innovations can be employed in a significant way to enhance the health of school children. The rural-based telehealth clinics consist of video conferences and cameras that are interlinked with a distant healthcare provider. Such innovations can thereafter be employed by the healthcare provider to assess and interrelate with the student in a remote manner and provide adequate and proper care. Imperatively, such clinics can be employed in the provision of health education to the school nurses, staff of the educational facilities, as well as the students. By tradition, students accessed healthcare through community clinics. Nonetheless, this telehealth innovation makes it possible for the school nurse to directly work in tandem with the distant healthcare providers for urgent medical circumstances and also for chronic conditions (Reynolds and Maughan, 2015). 

            In accordance to Gifford et al. (2012), telehealth permits for the extension of behavioral health care together with specialty services to residents of rural regions. This is beneficial owing to the fact that such residents have restricted and scarcer services accessible to them in comparison to those residents in the urban regions. This also facilitates care which has a tendency of being very costly to these rural residents at a low cost. Some of the services that are prospective consist of online treatment programs, consultation services, mutual support chat rooms, as well as medical assessments and evaluations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, rural areas within the nation continue to experience healthcare service that is lacking and undeserving. Telehealth innovations facilitate the provision of healthcare to long-distance regions. As outlined in the paper, rural school-centered telehealth clinics enable students as well as school staff to access proper and adequate healthcare. Through the technology, it is possible for the school nurses to gain accessibility to information and knowledge regarding treatment of chronic illnesses and severe sicknesses that they themselves are unable to provide to the students. In addition, the telehealth innovation makes it possible to have online treatment programs, consultation services, mutual support chat rooms, as well as medical assessments and evaluations. The upside of this is that rural residents are able to access medical services at a cost-effective rate.