Question

Analyze the manner in which the use of technology improves the overall quality, safety, and efficiency of health care delivery. Next, speculate on one (1) risk of using technology within a health care system, and suggest one (1) way to mitigate the risk in question. Provide a rationale to support your response.

Answer 1

Telemedicine has been adopted by the healthcare sector to make the availability of proper healthcare and wellness, even at the remotest locations. Telemedicine has increased the accessibility of healthcare across the world. The key technologies or infrastructure, which facilitate the practice of telemedicine are:

• Remote patient monitoring devices: These devices enable the healthcare providers to keep a track of the patients and their medical conditions like cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, etc.
• Access to fast broadband internet with considerable bandwidth: This helps in maintaining the connectivity of the healthcare provider with the patient under monitoring
• Imaging peripherals: These facilitate the remote diagnosis of patients as the healthcare providers will be able to monitor the patient continuously
• 24*7 access to technical support staff: If the patient or relatives have any concern or query, they can contact the technical support staff. This team must be accessible 24*7.

The obstacles which can prevent healthcare providers from adopting telemedicine as a viable option for providing healthcare are:

• Threat of patient data security and privacy rights violation
• Inadequate funds to establish the infrastructure for telemedicine
• Non reliable broadband services of the area
• Fragmented regulations in establishing the effectiveness of telemedicine
• The provision of access physicians who can visit the patients in remote area may discourage health care providers from adopting telemedicine practices

The ways in which the risks associated with telemedicine can be mitigated are:

• Developing telemedicine as a HIPAA compliant platform so that its coverage and acceptability is wide
• Data transfer channels must be made secure
• Proper fund allocation for the telemedicine setup

https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/identifying-health-it-infrastructure-requirements-for-telehealth

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/3-best-practices-telehealth-infrastructure