Care Delivery: The Effectiveness of Telecare

Telecare has greatly revolutionized the way healthcare is delivered to patients, especially those suffering from long-term conditions. In evaluating the impact of telecare in delivering care to patients (Jacobs, Blanchard, & Baker, 2012) conducted a study to determine the feasibility, cost effectiveness, and comparative effectiveness of this technology. The researchers conducted a telehealth-based ergonomic study to illustrate how telehealth can be applied in occupational therapy and ergonomics.

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The study was conducted among ten participants who received healthcare through Telerehabilitation Computer Ergonomics System (tele-CES), a telecare technology that enabled each of the participants to receive care from their workstations (Jacobs, Blanchard, & Baker, 2012). The Tele-CES systems allows for communication to take place with doctors via conferencing. During the study, the patients were given ergonometric recommendations as well as being assessed for improvements and pain and comfort, which was subsequently accompanied with a four month follow-up.

Based on the findings of the study, the participants showed minimal or insignificant improvements in comfort and pain (Jacobs, Blanchard, & Baker, 2012). However, there was a high rate of complying with the ergonometric instructions. The compliance rate was at 88% (Jacobs, Blanchard, & Baker, 2012).

Following the research by Jacobs, Blanchard, & Baker (2012) it clear that telecare can be implemented in many different fields of nursing with significant results. Specifically, telecare can be used to improve care delivery in a patient-centered environment. Nursing informatics can benefit from this technology for instance through improved application of nursing data to improve delivery of patient care in remote areas (Jacobs, Blanchard, & Baker, 2012).

There is a wide range of data that may be useful in initiating a public inoculation program to provide public health to eliminate influenza (Korhonen, Nordman, & Eriksson, 2015). Nursing informatics integrates various fields such as information science, computer science, and nursing science in order to provide reliable solutions that improve patient outcomes, reduce the costs of accessing healthcare, and devise new strategies for teaching as well as patient management. Nursing informaticists help to create information that can be applied throughout the nursing profession to enforce a patient cantered culture or approach in providing quality healthcare. Therefore, as a public health nursing informatics specialist, I would make use of information such as the age, ethnicity, race, population distribution, and socioeconomic characteristics of the population (Korhonen, Nordman, & Eriksson, 2015). With these data, the program is bound to be successful in the long run because the data will create a foundation for improving the delivery of care to the patients through the inoculation program.

The use of technology in providing healthcare comes with a lot of ethical and considerations that have to be analyzed comprehensively to make the program effective. Ethical reflection is critical in dealing with ethical dilemmas associated with healthcare technology (Korhonen, Nordman, & Eriksson, 2015). Some of the ethical issues that are likely to come up include the unwillingness of patients to use new technologies, conflicts between technology and human beliefs, as well as the question of equality in implementing these technologies (Korhonen, Nordman, & Eriksson, 2015). Many people were skeptical about the success of using computers in healthcare. There is also the question of the rights of patients for privacy, which can also raise major ethical issues when using technology such as telecare to provide care to patients. This is because of the concerns over the security and ownership of the information shared between patients and nurses via the systems.

References

Jacobs, K., Blanchard, B., & Baker, N. (2012). Telehealth and ergonomics: A pilot study. Technology & Health Care, 20(5), 445-458.

Korhonen, E., Nordman, T., & Eriksson, K. (2015). Technology and its ethics in nursing and caring journals. Nursing Ethics, 22(5), 561-576.