Telemedicine: Will telemedicine improve the quality of healthcare and its delivery for remotely located advanced healthcare para-professionals? The basic purpose of this study is to discuss whether telemedicine will improve the quality of health care and it's delivery for remotely located advanced health care para-professionals.

The scope of the study is over seeing as it covers the implication of implementation of telemedicine as a professional genre. It would also show how the installation of telemedicine means to other researchers, who want to take this field further and analyze it other context such as financial system of medical systems, telemedicine implicaiton on Medicare etc.

The researcher plans to adopt a case study / historical methodology of research by first collecting a literature review and then finally using it as a base for the analysis of the hypothesis questions. The researchers will also plan to use both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources will consist of government documentation and first hand interviews documented in reports. Secondary resources will include articles, web sites etc.

Resources

The following is a proposed resources for the study.

Dakins, D.R., "Wild-Eyed Revenue Projections Create Moving Target for Home Healthcare Market," Telemedicine and Telehealth Networks, 1995, 2:3:3.

Consensus Statement, First Mayo Telemedicine Symposium, 1993

Grigsby J, Barton PL, et al. Analysis of expansion of access to care through use of telemedicine and mobile health services. 3: Telemedicine policy: quality assurance, utilization review, and coverage. Denver: Center for Health Policy Research; 1994:8.

Fishman, Dorothy J., Telemedicine: bringing the specialist to the patient.. Vol. 28, Nursing Management, 07-01-1997, pp 30(3).

H.L. Smits, and A. Baum, "Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and Reimbursement in Telemedicine." Journal of Medical Systems 19, no. 2 (1995): 139-42.

IOM, Telemedicine: A Guide to Assessing Telecommunications in Health Care, M.J. Field, ea., (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1996),p.1.

Zundel, K.M., "Telemedicine: History, Applications, and Impact on Librarianship," Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 1996, 84:1:71-79.

Statement of Problem/Question to be Researched

Due to high demand of medical care need especially for those who do no have access to medical centres. These are usually concentrated in the rural areas or suburbs. The researcher aims to find answers to the following research studies:

Will telemedicine improve the quality of health care?

Will it improve the delivery of health care to remote areas?

Is telemedicine cost effective?

How can it be made cost-effective?

Survey of the Literature

Telemedicine is perhaps one of the fastest growing revolutionary technologies after computer-based patient records. According to a recent study, telemedicine, in all likelihood worth billions of precious health care dollars along with replacing 5% of hospital stays, 5% of nursing home care and another 20% of home health visits. (Dakins 1995)

The primary advantage that can be acquired through the field of telemedicine is that it allows patients and doctors to interact at a rapid speed mainly by way of computers and patient video cameras. To put it simply, physical distance between a doctor and a patient is greatly reduced as this interactive method of finding health practitioners brings the former to the patients thereby giving them a wide variety of doctors and surgeons to choose from.

The twenty first century is undoubtedly the age of the mass media and as society seeks to actualize its potentials one finds that telemedicine will provide an interactive telecommunicative forum that will enable the patients to find people that can really help them with their problems thereby finding an instant cure to their ailments, instead of looking around and going doctors that may not know what is really wrong with them. If telemedicine is allowed to flourish, one will find that this means of communication will be made available on demand, quite like the way a telephone service is used these days. Furthermore telemedicine will also be applicable to situations where person-to-person contact is essential instead of impersonal methods. Therefore one can say that the application of these telecommunication links to the field of medicine can be defined as telemedicine. Currently the potential of telemedicine is being explored so one cannot say for sure what the effects of this revolutionary technology will be in the field of medicine, especially with regard to providing medical help to remote and inaccessible regions of the world.

At present there is a need to analyze whether telemedicine will be able to produce enough income so as to sustain itself instead of depending on other financial resources, before the concerned authorities can seriously think about implementing such systems on an extensive scale....

The issue at hand with regard to income generation is reimbursement, which is on the verge of impossible for telemedicine because it is quite likely that the service will be misused/overused by the masses.
Research Design and Collection of Data:

The researcher plans to adopt the case study / historical methodology where no instruments will be used but the data collected through a survey of literature review will be taken into account to provide for a detailed background on telemedicine and its benefits to the users.

Treatment of Data or Information Discovered:

Data collection is liable to be biased and sometimes not credible. The researcher plans to filter the various articles, by categorizing their validity and credibility. For instance the researcher will use journal articles and books as the main framework for the study but it would also be supported by periodicals etc.

Conclusions

After having review the literature, the researcher will analyze in the context of the hypothesis question and prove whether they have proven true or not. The researcher will then make recommendations at the end of the study to show how effective telemedicine proves to the consumers.

Telemedicine: Will telemedicine improve the quality of healthcare and its delivery for remotely located advanced healthcare para-professionals?

Chapter 1: Statement of the Problem

Introduction

Telemedicine is perhaps one of the fastest growing revolutionary technologies after computer-based patient records. According to a recent study, telemedicine, in all likelihood worth billions of precious health care dollars along with replacing 5% of hospital stays, 5% of nursing home care and another 20% of home health visits. (Dakins 1995)

The primary advantage that can be acquired through the field of telemedicine is that it allows patients and doctors to interact at a rapid speed mainly by way of computers and patient video cameras. To put it simply, physical distance between a doctor and a patient is greatly reduced as this interactive method of finding health practitioners brings the former to the patients thereby giving them a wide variety of doctors and surgeons to choose from [First Mayo Telemedicine Symposium, 1993].

The twenty first century is undoubtedly the age of the mass media and as society seeks to actualize its potentials one finds that telemedicine will provide an interactive telecommunicative forum that will enable the patients to find people that can really help them with their problems thereby finding an instant cure to their ailments, instead of looking around and going doctors that may not know what is really wrong with them. If telemedicine is allowed to flourish, one will find that this means of communication will be made available on demand, quite like the way a telephone service is used these days. Furthermore telemedicine will also be applicable to situations where person-to-person contact is essential instead of impersonal methods. Therefore one can say that the application of these telecommunication links to the field of medicine can be defined as telemedicine. Currently the potential of telemedicine is being explored so one cannot say for sure what the effects of this revolutionary technology will be in the field of medicine, especially with regard to providing medical help to remote and inaccessible regions of the world [Grigsby et al., 1994].

The Telemedicine symposium held in 1993 in this regard clearly stated the following: "Effective telemedicine will dramatically improve the ability of mid- level providers (e.g., physician assistants, nurse practitioners, etc.) to participate in health care delivery to underserved populations. Mid-level practitioners represent an important resource for improving access to care with a lower increase in health care costs. Effective telemedicine will both improve the resources available to these practitioners and decrease their sense of isolation in underserved areas. Developments in telemedicine should recognize this important link and fully develop its potential."

At present there is a need to analyze whether telemedicine will be able to produce enough income so as to sustain itself instead of depending on other financial resources, before the concerned authorities can seriously think about implementing such systems on an extensive scale. The issue at hand with regard to income generation is reimbursement, which is on the verge of impossible for telemedicine because it is quite likely that the service will be misused/overused by the masses.

As a result of the potential overuse concerns, certain limitations are most likely to be placed on the use of the service. This would include restricted coverage in those situations where the patient in all likelihood cannot be moved along with situations in which the patient is located in a geographically remote region of the country/world. Not only this but it is also important to examine the ways in which non-physicians would be reimbursed in the field. Needless to say that research in this…