Telehealth technologies and Healthcare Informatics

Healthcare Informatics: Tele-health technologies
1) Tele-health technologies represent a sub-division of healthcare information technology which aid in delivering long-distance health education, public health, clinical care, health administration and relevant information. They encompass hardware as well as software and enhance general system efficacy through the maximization of individual practitioner productivity and elimination of geographical care obstacles. Perhaps the most ideal use of tele-health technology is real-time interactions, where patients and practitioners located at different places interact via audio- and video-enabled devices. Providers and patients may also be located at the same place, interacting via such virtual-connect technologies (e.g., videoconferencing) with a remotely-located expert. Such appointments facilitate on-going care via one’s routine physician without needing in-person appointments (Chiron health, 2017).
2) Taking into account extant tele-health options and approaches for assessing systemic implementation plans with regard to advantages and disadvantages in primary care facilities, the ideal choice is audio- and video-enabled devices. Substituting virtual appointments for conventional physical visits to practitioners can free precious space for those whose health condition necessitates in-person visits. Such substitution is applicable to episodic patient care as well, enabling better access to scarcely-available experts. Further, it may allow aggregation of individuals suffering from rare ailments across several healthcare facilities for creating enough volume and sustaining expert subspecialists’ practice. Virtual visits with experts for a second opinion in case of complex health problems among underserved populations can enhance provider income and chances of optimum patient matching with specialists. Such approaches may decrease gaps between rural and urban care delivery through greater access to specialist care in medically underserved areas, or care access for specific diseases. This may also help enhance work life quality for practitioners working at large urban specialty and general facilities through supporting better staffing models, allowing them to remain available from home to ‘virtually’ oversee critical events among hospitalized patients. Virtual patient appointments may lower urgent care clinic usage, decrease hospitalization and re-hospitalization, and introduce a virtual house-calling trend. Constant medical attention when transporting patients to healthcare centers is hard or even, at times, impossible owing to foreseeable conditions like monetary hardship, distance, medical limitations, etc., or unforeseen events like weather conditions, work demands, familial crises, travel restrictions enforced by law enforcers, etc. (Schwamm, 2014).
3) Home monitoring is a great service, which allows healthcare providers to observe and gauge patients’ health information across cultures, geographic locations, and socio-economic groups. Such monitoring encompasses application of non-video as well as video technologies, which promote greater health service access, self-care and illness management, and proactive, timely interventions for gleaning positive results. Decisions pertaining to choice of technology (which include Store-and-Forward, messaging, video, and virtual monitoring of pulse oximetry, weight, vital signs, glucose etc.) are guided by individual patients’ clinical requirements and healthcare organization aims and requirements. These technologies support post-hospitalization, home health, sub-acute and chronic care, senior living, etc., offering education, observation, self-directed patient care and better care access. Practitioners’ vision is expanded for allowing swifter, proactive evaluation and intervention for acute and chronic disease populations. There is, however, one area for improvement in home monitoring: digital devices may be incorporated for uploading food logs, drugs, dosage, and blood glucose levels for nurse review and response. Additionally, a smartphone app for carbohydrate counting would also prove valuable (American Telemedicine Association, n.d).
4) Skype, Facetime and other consumer-grade videoconferencing apps, though user-friendly, widely utilized, and good for being in touch with kith and kin, don’t work in case of telemedicine. Their systems don’t support patient confidentiality or fulfill HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) information security restrictions. HIPAA-compliant apps are vital for telehealth. Desktop videoconferencing may help, considering increased demands on firms for connecting patients, practitioners and affiliates with 24/7 video capabilities. Such technologies necessitate evaluation of needs, novel risks and product capabilities. Further, standards-based video conferencing can offer interoperability function. 
5) Virtual appointments may work wonders for long-term patient results and involvement, in case of highly populated areas. Certain facilities allow virtual nurse/physician visits through web-based videoconferencing, allowing for on-going healthcare in the event physical visits aren’t possible or necessary. A few large organizations offer virtual physician access as a healthcare service. Patients sign in to an online service, complete a set of health-related questions, and get prescribed medicines or recommendations for home care and other medical care. Nurse-staffed call centers may prove valuable in this regard (Chiron health, 2017).
6) The healthcare technology continuum may be improved through recognizing its effect on people’s lives. Information revolution has had unprecedented advantages for the health sector. For attaining desired results, the health sector leverages state-of-the-art information technology: social and portable avenues, big-data analytics, cognitive solutions, unstructured information provided by innumerable clinical sensors, etc. When the emphasis is on information storage, cost-cutting gets prioritized. However, beyond the element of cost, storage solutions necessitate the aspects of efficacy and speed; concurrently, migrating to the increasingly-bigger list of novel application workloads becomes simpler. Speedily emergent technology has galvanized the current boom in telehealth apps. But its implementation within healthcare centers is deemed to be a precondition for its incorporation as a substitute to supporting healthcare service delivery. Telehealth is described as the application of cutting-edge telecommunication technology for health data interchange and care provision across geographic, cultural, time, and social obstacles. It can enhance service access and quality, besides decreasing spending. This may be sorted through surmounting key obstacles that hamper telehealth network integration into healthcare centers in terms of technological and financial aspects (Gagnon, Cloutier & Gagné, 2004).









References
American Telemedicine Association. (n.d).Home Telehealth and Remote monitoring Sig. http://www.americantelemed.org/main/membership/ata-members/ata-sigs/home-telehealth-remote-monitoring-sig
Chiron health (2017). Telehealth Technology. https://chironhealth.com/telemedicine/telehealth-technology/
Chiron health (2017). Worst Telemedicine Mistakes to Avoid. https://chironhealth.com/blog/worst-telemedicine-mistakes-avoid/
Gagnon, M., Cloutier, A., & Gagné, C. (2004). The Impact of Organizational Characteristics on Telehealth ... Retrieved September 30, 2017, from https://www.bing.com/cr?IG=871A1396891C42C6946FEA992D448AA8&CID=3E79B086392B64B43457BB8B382D6575&rd=1&h=RG-NVLQnRe2pxx5hK5W9W04nuCSEiAjCtHp27aPYMNc&v=1&r=https%3a%2f%2fwww.computer.org%2fcsdl%2fproceedings%2fhicss%2f2004%2f2056%2f06%2f205660142b.pdf&p=DevEx,5066.1
Rural Health information hub. (2017). Telehealth Use in Rural Healthcare. https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/telehealth
Schwamm, L. H. (2014, February 01). Telehealth: Seven Strategies to Successfully Implement Disruptive Technology and Transform Health Care. Retrieved September 30, 2017, from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/33/2/200.