Going to a doctor’s office or emergency room is never convenient. Waiting rooms are time consuming, stressful, and often times the original appointment leads to a referral and more waiting rooms. With new technologies a patient can now consult with their doctor from the comfort of their living room, or even monitor chronic conditions from home (Butcher, 2015). This new development is referred to as telemedicine or e-health. Telehealth and/or telemedicine can be as simple as an electronic chart or as advanced as a patient’s vital signs being taken at home and sent to their doctor (Kamei, 2013). Telemedicine covers a wide spectrum of patient care and is rapidly becoming a common practice. While there are hesitancies among some care providers, according to Butcher (2015), most are pleasantly surprised with using telehealth. The evolution of telehealth includes store and forward, real-time health, and telehomecare.
Patients have been getting second opinions for quite some time, and that is essentially what store and forward technology gives patients access to, while never having to see a second doctor. Sewell and Thede (2013) define store and forward technology as electronic images that are sent to a specialist for interpretation at the doctor’s convenience. This practice isn’t a patient taking photos on their cell phone and sending …show more content…
As it currently stands, physicians are licensed by their state but with telemedicine they are providing care to patients without state borders, thus opening the possibility of malpractice claims (Brown, 2015). As Brown (2015) describes costs are another barrier telemedicine faces, but not the costs of malpractice claims, rather the lack of funding and reimbursement. As it currently stands it is not financially feasibly to sustain a telemedicine program, but legislation is in process to provide funding (Brown,
Patients have been getting second opinions for quite some time, and that is essentially what store and forward technology gives patients access to, while never having to see a second doctor. Sewell and Thede (2013) define store and forward technology as electronic images that are sent to a specialist for interpretation at the doctor’s convenience. This practice isn’t a patient taking photos on their cell phone and sending …show more content…
As it currently stands, physicians are licensed by their state but with telemedicine they are providing care to patients without state borders, thus opening the possibility of malpractice claims (Brown, 2015). As Brown (2015) describes costs are another barrier telemedicine faces, but not the costs of malpractice claims, rather the lack of funding and reimbursement. As it currently stands it is not financially feasibly to sustain a telemedicine program, but legislation is in process to provide funding (Brown,