Telehealth: Advantages, Challenges, and Implications for Healthcare

Running head: DISCUSSION PAPER
Tele Health
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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DISCUSSION PAPER
Introduction
Telehealth is a wide term that encompasses video-conferencing and exchange of
important medical information through electronic communication system. It also helps in
remote monitoring of patients, population health management through the application of
mobile health technologies (Henderson et al., 2014). The following is a discussion paper on
telehealth and the salient points that will be highlighted under this topic include the
background definition and scope of the discussed topic, telehealth from nursing perspectives,
its advantages and disadvantages along with its implication in healthcare. At the end, the
discussion paper will aim to highlight few recommendations that will be beneficial in order to
overcome those disadvantages.
Thesis Statement
Telehealth is a cost-effective option in present day healthcare system which helps to
increase self-management of the disease along with decrease in the instances of hospital
readmission
Background Definition and Scope
Telehealth services enable consumers to access health education along with proper
support for comprehensive self-health management via internet. The telehealth service also
enables patients to get personalized education materials and coaching and also help them to
participate in online discussion forms and join other support groups as an additional way for
managing their health. The use and the popularity of mobile phones have significantly
increased consumer’s access to telehealth services and have popularized the term mHealth.
mHealth means services accessed via mobile wireless technology. Another important factor
that is inherently linked with telehealth is telemedicine. Telemedicine means “healing at a

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DISCUSSION PAPER
distance” (Kvedar, Coye & Everett, 2014). According to the American Tele-medicine
Association (2018), telemedicine is defined as the use of the medical information by the
patients via exchange of the information through electronic communication. There are
numerous applications of telehealth. According to Xiang and Liu (2013), telehealth is highly
effective for the patients who are suffering from congestive heart failure (CHF) as it helps to
reduce the instances of hospital readmissions through effective telemonitoring. Telehealth has
also evolved as a comprehensive option for healthcare programs for the veterans. Chronic
diseases which are common among the older adults like diabetes and depression which
require frequent follow up can be controlled via telehealth (Cimperman et al., 2013). Other
important application of telehealth in the present scenario of the healthcare system includes
assistance for the patients for the adherence of the medication regime, remote intensive care
and reduction in the referral waiting time (Kvedar et al., 2014).
Telehealth has been around for several decades in Canada, furnishing patients residing
in remote areas with easy to access healthcare services via the use of videoconferencing.
With the introduction of the mobile phones in the telecommunication market, telehealth has
undergone huge change along with the increase in the number of potential patient. Infiltration
of telehealth in healthcare system has also helped to reduce distance issues prevalent in
Canada, the second largest country in the world. Thus overall both the healthcare
professionals and patients in Canada are increasingly accepting telehealth to access
healthcare (Gillis, Newsham & Maeder, 2015). Jaglal et al. (2013) are of the opinion that
application of telehealth have improved chronic disease self-management program (CDSM).
This has lead to the overall improvement in the self-efficacy, health behaviours and overall
health status of the older adults residing the rural areas of Canada, Single and multi-site
groups access of the telehealth and proved to be very helpful in promoting equitable access of
healthcare service in remote and rural areas of Canada.

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DISCUSSION PAPER
Van Henderson et al. (2014) are of the opinion that telehealth have helped to improve
the access of healthcare to the large group of patients via introduction of the innovative tools.
Nurse practitioners are regarded as an integral part of these innovative tools, which provide
scalable approach in order to collaborate and co-ordinate healthcare. However, the global
adoption and subsequent integration of telehealth can be difficult because of the lack of
proper training among the nursing professionals and lack of proper exposure to in handling
the technology of telehealth. In order to increase hands on training of the nursing
professionals over telehealth, the education of telehealth has been included under the nursing
curriculum. Ali, Carlton and Ali (2015) are of the opinion that being accustomed with the
concept of telehealth from the initial days of nursing will help the aspiring nurses to adapt to
the telehealth concept more spontaneously. However, introduction of telehealth study in
nursing curriculum can help the new nursing professionals however, this approach will have
no effect over the increase of the acceptance rate of telehealth technology among the
registered nursing professionals. Taylor et al. (2015) stated that the gap in acceptance mainly
arise from high level of faith over the traditional healthcare practice. Taylor et al. (2015) are
of the opinion that proper strategies must be framed in order to encourage the healthcare
professionals to practice telehealth service along side with the traditional approach in
healthcare.
Thus the main scope of the topic is, encouragement of the healthcare professionals in
proper adaptation and implementation of telehealth will help to improve the self-efficacy of
the healthcare system.
Benefits and Challenges
Rural community settings represent dynamic barrier in comprehensive access to the
healthcare services of the patients, their family members and informal care givers. These