Telehealth: Improving Healthcare Quality and Access
This paper argues that telehealth benefits both healthcare professionals and patients by improving the quality and delivery of care. It examines three key advantages: the cost-saving potential of telephone-based follow-up systems, the utility of automated screening tools for patients experiencing depression, and the growing global adoption of telemedicine as technology continues to advance. Drawing on studies by Alemi et al., Baer et al., and Bashshur et al., the paper demonstrates that telehealth removes barriers of time, distance, and cost, ultimately making healthcare more accessible and efficient for diverse patient populations, including those in rural areas.
- Introduction to Telehealth: Thesis: telehealth improves care quality and delivery
- Cost Savings and Follow-Up Care: Telehealth reduces costs and travel barriers
- Telehealth and Depression Treatment: Automated screening aids underserved depression patients
- Growing Adoption of Telehealth: Global expansion as technology advances worldwide
- Conclusion: Summary of telehealth benefits and future role
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper builds its argument progressively, moving from cost-efficiency to mental health applications to global adoption, giving each point its own focused paragraph with direct evidence.
- Each body paragraph integrates at least one direct quotation supported by a parenthetical citation, demonstrating consistent use of source-based reasoning.
- The conclusion concisely restates all three claims in a single synthesizing paragraph, reinforcing the thesis without introducing new content.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively uses the "claim–evidence–analysis" structure in each body paragraph: a topic sentence states the benefit, a quotation or study provides evidence, and brief analysis connects that evidence back to the thesis. This is a foundational technique in academic writing that keeps arguments tightly focused and well-supported.
Structure breakdown
The essay follows a classic five-paragraph structure: an introductory paragraph establishing the thesis, three body paragraphs each addressing a distinct benefit of telehealth (cost reduction, mental health care, and ubiquity), and a concluding paragraph that synthesizes the main points. This straightforward structure makes it a clear model for short argumentative essays at the undergraduate level.
Introduction to Telehealth
Telehealth has provided an innovative solution that helps healthcare professionals and patients overcome obstacles of time and space. From lowering costs to opening doors for more immediate care, telehealth is changing the way healthcare is received. Moreover, this trend is only expected to continue and rise as more healthcare facilities around the world implement telehealth approaches. The reason for this trend is simple: healthcare professionals and patients benefit from telehealth because it improves the quality of care and its delivery.
Cost Savings and Follow-Up Care
The first reason telehealth helps in healthcare is that it can lower follow-up costs for many individuals who struggle to pay for in-office visits. For instance, telehealth provides patients with fast and sufficient service via telephone: "an automated telephone follow-up system that calls, identifies, and interviews clients is an alternative method for monitoring patients that may be both reliable and cost-effective" (Alemi, Stephens & Parran, 2014, p. 180). Treatment outcomes can be more easily monitored using telehealth, which reduces the cost of having to make in-person visits to a healthcare provider. It also removes the time, hassle, energy, and cost involved in traveling to and from a healthcare facility. For people in rural areas, it can save hours of travel time and the associated costs (American Health Information Management Association, 2017).
Telehealth and Depression Treatment
Not only is telehealth a cost-saving approach to healthcare, but it can be particularly helpful when it comes to providing services for those dealing with depression. Telehealth provides the depressed population with a way to make toll-free calls in their time of need. Using automated telephone screening, digital voice recordings, and touch-tone responses to evaluate symptoms of depression, patients can receive the treatment they need in a fast and easy manner (Baer et al., 1995). This approach is helpful, as demonstrated by Baer et al. (1995), who conducted a study and found that "the majority of callers scoring positive for depression had received no previous treatment for depression," and that three-quarters of those who completed the screening found it to be helpful (p. 1943).
Conclusion
There are many reasons for telehealth's rise and utility in healthcare: it offers a low-cost way for patients and providers to come together; it has obvious utility in helping patients dealing with depression to receive treatment and care that they might otherwise not obtain; it eliminates time and space obstacles; and it is becoming more and more universal in healthcare facilities the world over as a result of its ability to help facilities streamline processes. If the goal of healthcare is to improve patient outcomes and provide quality care, telehealth will surely have a part to play in the future of healthcare.
References
Alemi, F., Stephens, R., Parran, T., Llorens, S., Bhatt, P., Ghadiri, A., & Eisenstein, E. (1994). Automated monitoring of outcomes: application to treatment of drug abuse. Medical Decision Making, 14(2), 180–187. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8028471/
American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). (2017). Telemedicine Toolkit. Retrieved from https://healthsectorcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AHIMA-Telemedicine-Toolkit.pdf
Baer, L., Jacobs, D. G., Cukor, P., O'Laughlen, J., Coyle, J. T., & Magruder, K. M. (1995). Automated telephone screening survey for depression. JAMA, 273(24), 1943–1944.
Bashshur, R. L., Puskin, D., & Silva, J. (1995). Second Invitational Consensus Conference on Telemedicine and the National Information Infrastructure: Augusta, Georgia, May 2–4, 1995. Telemedicine Journal, 1(4), 321–375.
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