Telehealth in Nursing: Advantages and disadvantages

Telehealth in nursing: Advantages and disadvantages

Introduction

Nursing is the promotion and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and joy and alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis of human response (www.nursingworld.org). Nurses are usually distinguished from other suppliers of health care by the way they approach their patients, scope of practice and training. Nursing is a very noble profession whose purpose is to promote health, growth and development. In addition to direct patient care, nursing practice involves management, teaching, policy and knowledge development. The profession of nursing has also to adhere to ethical values with respect to dignity, privileged nurse-patient relationship and to be able to hold themselves accountable for their deeds and also acceptance of the consequences. The practice of nursing is regulated by law and entry to the discipline is governed at the state and national level.

The purpose of nursing community in almost all the countries is to enable its professionals to make sure that they impart quality care to people of all the ages and cultural backgrounds while at the same time upholding the highest code of ethics and professional conduct. Nurses care about patients in a holistic manner keeping in mind the every individual's emotional, psychological and social requirements. The profession of nursing is a combination of many interrelated fields including physical and social sciences, technology and nursing theory. Nurses have to be up to dated with the latest advancements in technology so that they can impart the highest quality of care to people in need. The technological advancements in health care have impacted the way nurses and many other professionals conduct their profession in a positive way. The technology, on the other hand, also presents some challenges as well that have to be overcome. But on the whole the benefits of technological progress outweigh its implications. One of the important applications of technology in nursing is telehealth nursing.

Discussion

Telecommunication technologies can be utilized to assist the delivery of supply of health care to patients in remote and rural areas and also facilitate exchange of information between healthcare professionals (Sarhan, 2009). Telehealth is an emerging area of healthcare delivery that enables and then increases access to care, reduces utilization and has the potential to improve patient safety particularly in remote and rural areas. To ensure that the telehealth programs maintain current level of patient safety and further contribute to improve the same, requires standardization of the underlying clinical, technology and business processes (Darkins, 2012). Telehealth is a diverse and comprehensive concept that includes exchange of medical information with the help of telecommunication technologies. Telehealth delivery can range from a simple phone conversation between two healthcare professionals to a comprehensive videoconferencing between healthcare providers in two separate countries or it can also include a complicated and complex robotic technology. Telehealth is actually an expansion of the term telemedicine. The approach and focus of telemedicine is narrower and focuses more on the curative aspect of treatment while telehealth includes curative, preventive and ...