Running head: TELE HEALTHCARE 1 TELE HEALTHCARE 6 Tele Healthcare Name Institution Tele Healthcare Approximately over 50 years of telehealth development has seen tackling of numerous medical conditions through the utilization of different types of technologies. Tele healthcare has been associated with a wide variety of outcomes in the healthcare. Despite the fact that it as shown great promise in the modern times, it has also triggered a number of challenges for interpretation and technical issues that are linked to the lack of technological expertise among the healthcare practitioners. For instance, then challenges that exist in defining such terms as telehealth is a reflection of the broader difficulties when it comes to the interpretation of the complex interplay that exists between clinical output, patient involvement, service designs and technology. Despite these significant challenges whose impacts in the healthcare delivery is great, the significance of telehealth practices cannot be overlooked in terms of the patient outcomes and efficiency of healthcare delivery. Tele healthcare has enhanced information sharing between patients and doctors even those who are located in the remote areas. It has made it possible to monitor the progress of patients within and outside the facilities devoid of the need to have physical meetings. The benefits of tele healthcare outweigh its pitfalls hence it is important that is integrated into medical practices to optimize patient outcomes. Tele healthcare is depicted as personalized healthcare that is delivered over a long distance such that data is transferred from the patients to the professionals and back. It has played a key role in enhancing feedback from the patients to the professionals for the interest of evidence-based decision making and treatment. For instance, the significance of telehealth can be evident among the inpatients with severe long-term conditions such as diabetes and long-term asthma. It has played a key role in reducing hospital admissions without increasing mortality. Advantages of Tele Healthcare There are numerous advantages of tele healthcare. To start with is that it is powered by technology. Technological advancement in the modern times has made it easy for various organizational operations. Technological advancement has been adopted across all spheres of life and healthcare is not an exemption. Creating a balance between healthcare practices and technology is a key requirement when it comes to the medical operations and practices (Dorsey & Topol, 2016). The case of the importance of tele healthcare can be witnessed in electronic health records whereby a medical professional admits the patient and their data is keyed in the system. This data is required in the en ...

1. Running head: TELE HEALTHCARE
1
TELE HEALTHCARE
6
Tele Healthcare
Name
Institution
Tele Healthcare
Approximately over 50 years of telehealth development has seen
tackling of numerous medical conditions through the utilization
of different types of technologies. Tele healthcare has been
associated with a wide variety of outcomes in the healthcare.
Despite the fact that it as shown great promise in the modern
times, it has also triggered a number of challenges for
interpretation and technical issues that are linked to the lack of
technological expertise among the healthcare practitioners. For
instance, then challenges that exist in defining such terms as
telehealth is a reflection of the broader difficulties when it
comes to the interpretation of the complex interplay that exists
between clinical output, patient involvement, service designs
and technology. Despite these significant challenges whose
impacts in the healthcare delivery is great, the significance of
telehealth practices cannot be overlooked in terms of the patient
outcomes and efficiency of healthcare delivery. Tele healthcare
has enhanced information sharing between patients and doctors
even those who are located in the remote areas. It has made it
possible to monitor the progress of patients within and outside
the facilities devoid of the need to have physical meetings. The
benefits of tele healthcare outweigh its pitfalls hence it is

2. important that is integrated into medical practices to optimize
patient outcomes.
Tele healthcare is depicted as personalized healthcare that is
delivered over a long distance such that data is transferred from
the patients to the professionals and back. It has played a key
role in enhancing feedback from the patients to the
professionals for the interest of evidence-based decision making
and treatment. For instance, the significance of telehealth can
be evident among the inpatients with severe long-term
conditions such as diabetes and long-term asthma. It has played
a key role in reducing hospital admissions without increasing
mortality.
Advantages of Tele Healthcare
There are numerous advantages of tele healthcare. To start with
is that it is powered by technology. Technological advancement
in the modern times has made it easy for various organizational
operations. Technological advancement has been adopted across
all spheres of life and healthcare is not an exemption. Creating
a balance between healthcare practices and technology is a key
requirement when it comes to the medical operations and
practices (Dorsey & Topol, 2016). The case of the importance
of tele healthcare can be witnessed in electronic health records
whereby a medical professional admits the patient and their data
is keyed in the system. This data is required in the entire
decision making process that concern the various approaches to
treatment.
In the nursing practice, the concept of evidence-based practice
has gained course with the increasing need to implement and
adopt it in the healthcare. As such, telehealth has played a key
role in eradicating the physical barriers that used to undermine
the treatment process. Specifically, the patients who do not need
to be admitted or readmitted to the nursing homes have a chance

3. to receive medical services while still at their homes (Lee &
Billings, 2016). They are monitored through the tele healthcare
approaches that facilitate the transmission of data from the
patients to the professionals and back. Long-term conditions
such as diabetes and asthma are claiming many lives in the
United States today.
According to Gulla (2018), approximately more than 100
million people are living with diabetes in the United States. The
Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has reported that
around 9.4% are living with acute diabetes in the United States
(Gulla, 2018). The basic question that comes herein is how tele
healthcare has played a major role in the delivery of health
services from the medical professionals to the patients
especially those in remote areas who have remained
underserved. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention
have cited cost as one of the biggest challenges that have
undermined the remediation of the long-term conditions in the
country. The cost of treatment has been reduced significantly
with reduced physical meetings between the nurses and patients.
The patient have a chance to acquire medical assessment and
advice while at their homes without necessarily having to hold
physical meetings with the practitioners.
It is important to underscore the fact that tele healthcare is a
win-win situation for both the patients and medical
practitioners. This is because the pressure that has been piling
in nursing homes has reduced. According to Kaambwa et.al.
(2017), the key cause of medical errors in the nursing facilities
is high doctor-patient ratio. The focus on one patient has been
overlooked due to the huge populations of patients who visit
healthcare facilities every day. Tele healthcare has helped by
and large to remedy this challenge that has remained to be a
thorn not only in the nursing practice and in the entire
healthcare fraternity.
Timely information access is another advantage associated with

4. tele healthcare. It has helped the healthcare professionals to
have access to information at any given time and place provided
there is network coverage and the access is authorized. One of
the ways in which telehealth has helped to achieve this is the
integration of patient data. Hospitals have come together and
integrated their data for the interest of enhancing patient
outcomes. Medical professionals have, for instance, joined
associations that have reiterated the significance of having an
integrated system to enhance information access between the
patients and medical professionals. The patient with long-term
conditions could have special gadgets that they can use to make
important communications with the medical professionals in
which they are able to receive medical advice. This is one of the
practices that have played a major role in reducing mortality
rates and deaths associated with time lapses especially as a
result of delays between the occurrence of an emergency and
response time (Polinski et.al., 2016).
In tele healthcare, by a click of a button, one can be able to
access the history of the patients from the time of admission to
the subsequent treatments that they have been subjected to for
the interest of understanding the best medical approaches to
subject them to. The history of the patient includes data of the
previous treatments in other facilities for the same or different
diseases. This has been key in the decision making process in
the healthcare arena.
According to Hellen (2017), the primary interest of the
healthcare practices is to enhance patient outcomes and help the
patient to regain their health both in the short-term and long-
term. Take for instance the case of the Affordable Care Act. It
was enacted with the interest to enhance patient outcomes
through the provision of universal healthcare insurance,
efficiency in the standard procedures and practices of treatment
and more importantly reduction of costs. Tele health is among
major approaches that have bene established to increase

5. efficiency of healthcare delivery. In other words, when it comes
to the debate on the best practices in healthcare, the aspect of
time cannot be overlooked. In other words, the patient outcomes
of the treatment process also depend on the response time.
Some conditions such as diabetes trigger other related
conditions such as high blood pressure and inconsistent glucose
levels in the body. These are issues that if not resolved within
the shortest time possible could see patients even lose their
lives.
As mentioned above, the use of radiofrequency transmissions
and other related technologies has enabled the medical
professionals to understand the condition of the patients at any
given time. With this understanding, the treatment process has
been simplified real time because of the close coordination
between the patients and nurses. It should be noted that
information forms the primary basis of the treatment process. A
lack of information is an indication that the decision making
process will definitely be delayed which means that the
condition of the patient could worsen off by the time they are
attended to. The ability to fast-track the progress of the patient
has become key in resolving some of the key issues that affect
the patients with long-term conditions that have been claiming
many lives in the United States today.
Telemedicine has relieved the nursing homes of the burden to
provide round-the-clock care for the patients suffering from
complex medical conditions. As mentioned earlier, tele
healthcare has made it possible to gather data from the patients
which is further used in the decision making process. The
pressure that used to be witnessed in then healthcare facilities
has been eased significantly with the increasing need to enhance
outcomes and make the treatment process as efficient as
possible (Wade et.al, 2016).
Controversies Surrounding Tele Healthcare

6. In as much as tele healthcare has eased the treatment process
significantly, the has come another burden to the patient and the
nursing homes to get the necessary equipment to facilitate the
treatment process. It follows that according to Collins et.al,
(2017), the healthcare industry whether private or state
healthcare organizations are grappling with the challenge of
underfunding and budget deficits. It is important to underscore
the fact that the treatment process by use of telemedicine is also
increasingly technical. This is because of the technology that
comes in between the coordination of technology and delivery
of healthcare. Acquisition of the necessary equipment has
become a key challenge in the nursing practice.
The issue of network is also a challenge. This is especially for
the patients who reside in remote areas which are network
deprived. Then coordination of the technological gadgets that
are used in tele healthcare cannot work properly without proper
technological connections. Whenever there are mishaps in
information flows, the consequences of such a situation could
be dire. It follows that medical practitioners may be unable to
fast-track the condition of the patients in the short-term,
something that could lead to delayed care.
The culture of technical meetings with the patients has made it
difficult to adopt tele health in the nursing practice. For
instance, there are patients who are used to face to face
meetings with the medical professionals. There are others who
are not educated hence efficiency of treatment cannot be
overlooked in this equation of healthcare practice. The use of
technology for these parties could sound challenging especially
when it comes to interpreting the various indications of the
gadgets. This is a key challenge that has significantly
undermined the treatment process.
Possible Challenges when Using Tele Healthcare

7. Network and level of education are key challenges when using
tele-healthcare. Network is required in the transmission of
information from the patients to the medical professionals and
back. The challenge of network is especially witnessed in the
remote areas. The level of education has impact on how
efficient the technology gadgets are in helping the patients to
transmit data and any inquiries to their respective facilities.
Other issues include the level of training, cultural
competencies, resource availability among others.
Technology Contributions to Healthcare
The contributions of technology to the healthcare are both
positive and negative. The positive significance of technology
include reduced costs, enhanced information sharing, efficiency,
accuracy, speedy treatments, emergency responses, reduction in
workloads among the medical professionals among others.
Misdiagnosis is a primary challenge undermining the healthcare
practices. Any case of misdiagnosis is inherited in the entire
treatment process. Other challenges include lack of standard
practices in then healthcare to facilitate tele health services.
In conclusion, tele healthcare has extended its beneficial aspects
to different sets of capacities including patients, providers,
communities and government. Patients are no longer required to
travel to distant specialists to acquire medical attention. This is
being done conveniently in their homes. Circuit riding
specialists using tele healthcare approaches are saving
substantial amounts of time. Some of the challenges associated
with it include technical problems, safety concerns such as
confidentiality and data losses and interface problems. The
benefits, however, outweigh the challenges by a large margin.
References

8. Collins, A., Burns, C. L., Ward, E. C., Comans, T., Blake, C.,
Kenny, L., ... & Best, D. (2017). Home-based telehealth service
for swallowing and nutrition management following head and
neck cancer treatment. Journal of telemedicine and
telecare, 23(10), 866-872.
Dorsey, E. R., & Topol, E. J. (2016). State of telehealth. New
England Journal of Medicine, 375(2), 154-161.
Kaambwa, B., Ratcliffe, J., Shulver, W., Killington, M., Taylor,
A., Crotty, M., ... & Kidd, M. R. (2017). Investigating the
preferences of older people for telehealth as a new model of
healthcare service delivery: A discrete choice
experiment. Journal of telemedicine and telecare, 23(2), 301-
313.
Lee, A. C. W., & Billings, M. (2016). Telehealth
implementation in a skilled nursing facility: case report for
physical therapist practice in Washington. Physical
therapy, 96(2), 252-259.
Polinski, J. M., Barker, T., Gagliano, N., Sussman, A., Brennan,
T. A., & Shrank, W. H. (2016). Patients’ satisfaction with and
preference for telehealth visits. Journal of general internal
medicine, 31(3), 269-275.
Wade, V. A., Taylor, A. D., Kidd, M. R., & Carati, C. (2016).
Transitioning a home telehealth project into a sustainable,
large-scale service: a qualitative study. BMC health services
research, 16(1), 183.
Gulla, V. (2018). Telehealth networks for hospital services:
New methodologies. Hershey, PA: Medical Information Science
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Helen, M. (2017). Fundamental aspects of long term conditions:
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9. Books, a division of MA Healthcare.