Telehealth Project: Vision Document for Improving Healthcare in Rural Areas

This report develops a vision document for the Telehealth project, which aims to improve healthcare in rural areas. It discusses the problems faced by healthcare professionals due to long distance issues and lack of healthcare facilities in rural regions. The report also describes the capabilities of the Telehealth project, including video conferencing, mobile health, patient monitoring, and storing of health-related data. The benefits of Telehealth include improved access, cost efficiencies, and improved quality of healthcare services. The report concludes that Telehealth will be beneficial for healthcare professionals and patients in rural regions.

Running head: SYSTEM ANALYSIS PG
System Analysis PG
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors’ note

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SYSTEM ANALYSIS PG
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Problem............................................................................................................................................2
Capabilities......................................................................................................................................3
Benefits............................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Telehealth project has been introduced for improving the access to the healthcare in
public hospitals of the rural areas (Rutledge et al., 2014). The main aim of this project is to
improve the delivery of healthcare, health services and improve the patient outcomes across the
state. Current funding is being planned to set up urgent healthcare centres in the rural regions and
to set up emergency departments at the nearest hospitals via video conferencing.
This report develops a vision document for the Telehealth project. It discusses about the
problems for which this project is being planned. This report also describes the capabilities as
well as benefits of the Telehealth project.
Problem
Healthcare professionals face difficulty in providing quality healthcare services to the
patients due to long distance issues. They face difficulty in communicating for delivering health
or other related processes such as professional advice and education. There are several issues in
case of face-to-face methods of providing education, professional advice and healthcare services.
Most of the physicians and healthcare professionals practice in the urban regions. There is lack
of healthcare facilities in the rural regions (Paliadelis et al., 2012). Due to long distance,
healthcare professionals face difficulty in delivering timely as well as appropriate healthcare
services to the patients in the rural regions. They also face difficulty in providing educational
support. Healthcare professionals are unable to spend sufficient time with the patients due to
several barriers like time, distance and cost. Rural patients do not get the facility of emergency
healthcare services in a timely manner (Weinhold & Gurtner, 2014). Response time by the

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emergency healthcare professionals and the time taken in transportation are comparatively more
than in the urban regions. These difficulties have led to impair outcomes such as increased
emotional and physical stress of the patients.
Capabilities
The main capabilities of Telehealth will be video conferencing, mobile health,
monitoring patient from remote location and storing of health related data. Telehealth project
will promote the use of information and communication technologies for remote access of
healthcare services. This will enable the physicians and healthcare professionals to manage
health related data as well as the healthcare of the patients from a distant location (Nagel,
Pomerleau & Penner, 2013). Telehealth will utilize various technologies for delivering virtual
health, education and medical services. Telehealth services will include dentistry, counselling,
professional and consumer education, physical therapy, disease monitoring and disaster
management. The main capabilities of the Telehealth project are discussed below.
Video conferencing: Telehealth service will enable the healthcare professionals to have a
two-way live interaction with the patients by utilizing telecommunications technology. Video
conferencing will provide real time service that will act as the substitute for an in-person
healthcare professional (Graves, 2012). Live video conferencing will facilitate the healthcare
professionals to carry out diagnostic as well as treatment services.
Storing and forwarding: This project will promote the use of ICT for transmitting health
records and details such as x-rays and pre-recorded video in a secure manner to the physicians.
This service will provide access to health records and data after collecting and storing it.

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Patient monitoring: Telehealth services will help to collect health data from a location
and transfer the record to another location where the physician is present. Healthcare
professionals will be able to monitor the patients in the rural regions from a remote location (De
San Miguel, Smith & Lewin, 2013). This service will allow tracking the healthcare related data
of the patients via secure electronic and communication technologies.
Mobile health: Telehealth project will include the use of mobile devices such as tablets
and cell phones that can be utilized for promoting healthy behaviour in the rural regions across
the state (Istepanian, Laxminarayan & Pattichis, 2014). Healthcare apps will enable the
physicians to monitor the patients in real time and in an accurate manner from any location.
Benefits
Telehealth project will be able to improve the access to the quality healthcare in the
public hospitals present in rural regions across the state. It will be able to improve the
communication process by allowing the physicians to get in contact with the patients and
monitor the health of the patients in a fast manner via digital telecommunication devices. It will
help to resolve the issue of long distance and deliver high quality education and health services.
The Telehealth services will provide a real time, cost effective and convenient service to the
patients and the healthcare professionals. Telehealth will be able to improve the patient outcomes
and will improve the delivery of health care services. The benefits of Telehealth are discussed
below.
Improved access: Telehealth will enable the health professionals to access health record
of the patients from any location without any difficulty. The video conferencing facility will be
able to expand their reach and serve to patients from a remote location. Telehealth solutions will

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be able to improve the quality of health services. Improved access to care will have a positive
impact on patient satisfaction as well as retention.
Cost efficiencies: Telehealth will provide cost effective solutions. Telehealth solutions
such as video conferencing will help to reduce the travel time and manage chronic diseases in a
better manner (Henderson et al., 2013). This will increase the cost efficiencies of the healthcare
facilities.
Improved quality: Video conferencing that are provided over telecommunication services
will be able to improve the service quality. Telehealth will be able to deliver superior products
and services with greater patient outcomes. It will also be able to improve the clinical workflow.
Information will be stored in an organized manner and this will enable the healthcare
professionals to improve the medical decision making process.
Conclusion
This report concludes that the Telehealth project will be beneficial for the healthcare
professionals as well as the patients in the rural regions. Video conferencing facility will be able
to overcome the issue of long distance between the patients and the physicians, and make the
process of communication efficient. It can be clearly seen from the above discussion that
Telehealth will be able to improve the patient outcomes and the quality of health and other
related services.

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References
De San Miguel, K., Smith, J., & Lewin, G. (2013). Telehealth remote monitoring for
community-dwelling older adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease. Telemedicine and e-Health, 19(9), 652-657.
Graves, B. A. (2012). Telehealth for communities: toward eliminating rural health
disparities. Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, 10(1), 4-6.
Henderson, C., Knapp, M., Fernández, J. L., Beecham, J., Hirani, S. P., Cartwright, M., ... &
Doll, H. (2013). Cost effectiveness of telehealth for patients with long term conditions
(Whole Systems Demonstrator telehealth questionnaire study): nested economic
evaluation in a pragmatic, cluster randomised controlled trial. Bmj, 346, f1035.
Istepanian, R., Laxminarayan, S., & Pattichis, C. S. (2014). M-health. John Wiley & Sons.
Nagel, D. A., Pomerleau, S. G., & Penner, J. L. (2013). Knowing, Caring, and Telehealth
Technology: “Going the Distance” in Nursing Practice. Journal of Holistic
Nursing, 31(2), 104-112.
Paliadelis, P. S., Parmenter, G., Parker, V., Giles, M., & Higgins, I. (2012). The challenges
confronting clinicians in rural acute care settings: a participatory research project. Rural
Remote Health, 12(2), 1-12.
Rutledge, C. M., Haney, T., Bordelon, M., Renaud, M., & Fowler, C. (2014). Telehealth:
preparing advanced practice nurses to address healthcare needs in rural and underserved
populations. International journal of nursing education scholarship, 11(1), 1-9.

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Weinhold, I., & Gurtner, S. (2014). Understanding shortages of sufficient health care in rural
areas. Health Policy, 118(2), 201-214.