Role of Technology in Health Care Essay Example Paper

Define telehealth as a health care delivery method. Explore therapeutic communication and the nurse practitioner-patient relationship in the setting of telehealth. Support your answer with evidence-based research.

Technology and Health: Telehealth

It is no longer possible to ignore the role of technology in health care. According to a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), 98,000 patient fatalities per year may have been avoided if healthcare personnel had not made mistakes (Palatnik, 2016). The research suggested that technology be used to eliminate human errors. As a result, incorporating technology into healthcare is a positive step in the right direction. The goal of this paper is to introduce telehealth as a cutting-edge technology innovation that makes healthcare delivery more efficient, affordable, and easy for both patients and providers.

Defining Telehealth and Removing Confusion

There is a lot of misunderstanding about what “telemedicine,” “telehealth,” and “telenursing” are and how they are used (AAFP, 2021). Despite the fact that they appear to be interchangeable, their meaning and scope are not identical. Telehealth is the most comprehensive of the three and includes the other two. It refers to the provision of a wide range of healthcare services to a patient while they are at home. The physician does not need to relocate, and the client does not need to spend money on transit to see the provider. Through a video link, everything takes place online. The practitioner consults with and prescribes care to family members and caregivers who are present at the patient’s home.

Role of Technology in Health Care Essay Example Paper

The Role of Telehealth in Nurse Informatics

Telehealth is a technology that gathers data in real time and accurately and has a distinct advantage over other technologies. It decreases the risk of costly errors that can jeopardize patient outcomes. It improves service delivery efficiency by making services faster and more convenient. Data collection has also improved when the telehealth platform is linked to the provider’s electronic health record (EHR) system (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017; Alotaibi Federico, 2017). Telehealth saves time and money in healthcare access and delivery because neither the practitioner nor the patient has to leave their current location. All these advantages make the technology worthwhile investing in and benefiting the patients that cannot travel all the time to come for consultation and follow up.

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Therapeutic Communication and Nurse Practitioner-Patient Relationship in Telehealth

Therapeutic relationship between the nurse practitioner and their patient involves interactions that will bring about a betterment of the patient outcomes. Since the NP is communicating with the patient when they are in their home setting, confidentiality is a very important factor (CMS, 2018). If this is breached it will not only violate the law but it will also spoil the existing therapeutic communication framework between the two. The NP must respect the patient’s privacy and must know their limits in questioning and probing. The NP-patient relationship in telehealth remains that of a clinician-patient and does not change from the way it was during physical face-to-face visits at the facility.

Conclusion

Telehealth is a very valuable technological tool in the arsenal of healthcare providers. It enables the follow up of patients who are not physically present at the facility and who may not be able to travel for one reason or another. Telehealth, telemedicine, and telenursing are not synonymous and have subtle differences.

References

Alotaibi, Y., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on patient safety. Saudi Medical Journal, 38(12), 1173–1180. https://doi.org/10.15537/smj.2017.12.20631

American Academy of Family Physicians [AAFP] (2021). What’ the difference between telemedicine and telehealth? https://www.aafp.org/news/media-center/kits/telemedicine-and-telehealth.html

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS] (2018). HIPAA basics for providers: Privacy, security, and breach notification rules. https://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/Downloads/HIPAAPrivacyandSecurity.pdf

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K.G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge, 4^th ed. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Palatnik, A. (2016). To err is human. Nursing Critical Care, 11(5), 4. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.CCN.0000490961.44977.8d

Role of Technology in Health Care Essay Example Paper