Healthcare Technology: Telemedicine, Remote Patient Care, and Ethics

This discussion post delves into the globalization of healthcare and the increasing use of technology to improve patient care, highlighting telemedicine and remote patient care as key trends. It explains how these technologies facilitate healthcare delivery in remote areas and offer patients greater control over their treatment, including remote patient monitoring. The post also discusses the ethical considerations associated with these technologies, such as data privacy and the potential for unequal access due to socioeconomic disparities, referencing relevant articles and studies. The analysis covers the benefits of these technologies, including cost-effective healthcare interventions, and emphasizes the importance of addressing ethical concerns to ensure patient safety and equitable access to care. The post also examines the positive effects of telehealth and remote patient care in outpatient settings and the creation of communication between healthcare professionals and patients.

Running head: CURRENT AND FUTURE HEALTH CARE TRENDS
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1CURRENT AND FUTURE HEALTH CARE TRENDS
Globalization of healthcare system has increased the technological use in curing patients
and these services are widespread in areas where healthcare services were not available in recent
times (Schwamm, 2014). There are enormous medical technologies which have been developed
by several important stakeholders of healthcare system such as healthcare professional
researchers, medical students, and most importantly the consumers of healthcare system
(McLean et al., 2013). This discussion post will be discussing about the recent healthcare
technology which is affecting patient’s health and wellbeing positively in recent times such as
the remote care process and telemedicine.
Telehealth is one of the technologies which helps the healthcare professionals to care for their
patients at remote locations using devices such as computers and cellular phones. In remote areas
where healthcare facilities are not present or healthcare professionals are unable to reach due to
the geographic location, telehealthcare is determined as in important healthcare service in such
areas (Kvedar, Coye & Everett, 2014). Further, tele healthcare in urban areas has different
implication and significance as it provides the patients with complete control over their
healthcare and they can contact their healthcare physicians whenever they require the
doctor’ssuggestion, hence enabling them with complete information about their ailment and the
process for wellbeing (McLean et al., 2013).
On the other hand, remote patient care is another process which is the result of using
technology for the betterment of healthcare service users (Husebø& Storm, 2013). With the help
of latest healthcare information technology, remote patient monitoring is one method which
helps the professionals to understand the patient situation and then implement interventions or

2CURRENT AND FUTURE HEALTH CARE TRENDS
strategies to gather the healthcare information data outside the healthcare facility and provide
them with traditional healthcare interventions within an outpatient service (Pouke&Häkkilä,
2013). This is an effective healthcare strategy as it provides the patients with complete control
over their healthcare process and manage their own health. These two technological services are
often used as interchangeable terms which is used while treating any patient in their outpatient
service (Husebø& Storm, 2013). Besides all these, there are other positive effects of tele-
healthcare and remote patient care is it helps to create a special communication between
healthcare professional and the healthcare service users in an outpatient care settings. Besides
this, in remote locations, it has been seen that disparity with respect to socio-economic status are
observed which increases the difficulty in attainment of health in remote locations (Kvedar, Coye
& Everett, 2014). Therefore, with the healthcare technologies and services it is easier to provide
cost effective healthcare intervention to people who are unable to receive healthcare
interventions in costly healthcare settings (Husebø& Storm, 2013).
Langarizadeh, M., Moghbeli, F., and Aliabadi, A. (2017). Application of ethics for
providing telemedicine services and information technology. Medical Archives, 71(5),
351.retrived from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5723167/
The above article provided the information regarding the ethical issues related to the telehealth in
the global market. Providing patients with harmful medicinal doses in the absence of the primary
care provider is an ethical issue which is faced by healthcare facilities while providing care to
patients in outpatient service (McLean et al., 2013).Furthermore, the confidentiality breach of the
patient is another health ethical issue connected to the telehealth. Confidentiality also identified
as the ethical issues where several families were deprived of telemedicine due to the lack of

3CURRENT AND FUTURE HEALTH CARE TRENDS
knowledge or required technology. Another identified ethical issues is that sometimes, the
therapist do not provide the detailed information of the treatment and associated side effects of
the treatment which give rise to the several questions regarding patient’s safety. Hence, besides
being beneficial for the emergency situations and patients at remote locations, it overrules the
ethical considerations.

4CURRENT AND FUTURE HEALTH CARE TRENDS
References
Husebø, A. M. L., & Storm, M. (2014). Virtual visits in home health care for older adults. The
scientific world journal, 2014.
Kvedar, J., Coye, M. J., & Everett, W. (2014). Connected health: a review of technologies and
strategies to improve patient care with telemedicine and telehealth. Health Affairs, 33(2),
194-199.
McLean, S., Sheikh, A., Cresswell, K., Nurmatov, U., Mukherjee, M., Hemmi, A., &Pagliari, C.
(2013). The impact of telehealthcare on the quality and safety of care: a systematic
overview. PloS one, 8(8), e71238.
Pouke, M., &Häkkilä, J. (2013). Elderly healthcare monitoring using an avatar-based 3D virtual
environment. International journal of environmental research and public health, 10(12),
7283-7298.
Schwamm, L. H. (2014). Telehealth: seven strategies to successfully implement disruptive
technology and transform health care. Health Affairs, 33(2), 200-206.