Marketing Research & Capstone Project: Proposal Tele Health

Telehealth
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Abstract
Telehealth usage is increasingly on the rise as its importance is becoming apparent in patient care. There are many different interpretations of the meaning of telehealth but the most commonly accepted is that it is “the use of telecommunications and information technologies to share information, and provide clinical care, education, public health, and administrative services at a distance.” The increased adoption of telehealth is driven by the urge to deliver the best quality health care. To many people, telehealth is important in maintaining independence and managing health. However, integrating telehealth into routine practice has become very difficult. The ability of telehealth to change the way medicine is practiced is apparent. Using the internet, patients can now access crucial health information. According to researchers, patients are thrilled at the chance of consulting a doctor using the same tools they use in communicating with their work colleagues, friends, and families.
The developed and developing countries can take advantage of information and communication technologies to provide workable solutions to their healthcare problems and ensure cost-effective, high-quality, and accessible health care. Telehealth takes advantage of ICT to overcome barriers related to biological locations and ensure there is increased access to the needed healthcare services.
The implementation of telehealth will need to undergo several phases. The first phase in the implementation of telehealth is evaluating needs. Needs evaluation is the most crucial because decisions made here will affect the entire telehealth implementation program. There is need to understand why it is needed going by the kinds of patients attended to. The next phase would involve developing a “care service plan”. The service plan should be developed in response to the needs. The third phase would require developing a business plan and performing risk analysis. These plans would help in determining the sustainability of the implementation program. The fourth phase would be to plan technology. This would require developing specifications for the equipment needed to meet the implementation goals and objectives. The next phase is personnel training. The personnel should be well versed with the working of the technology. Therefore, they will need extensive training to ensure that they never miss a thing. After the training phase, the technology would be tested and its outcomes evaluated to determine if they are accurate.
Problem Description
The cost of medicine provision has been on the rise globally. People living in rural areas face the greatest challenge in having access to quality healthcare. Telehealth is a good and innovative way of ensuring that quality healthcare is delivered in a relatively cost-effective way. Using telehealth, the gap between rural and urban areas with respect to access to healthcare services can be bridged. There is an imbalance in the ratio of doctors to patients; therefore, using telehealth, doctors can expand their patients’ base. Without technologies such as telehealth, doctors would have a difficulty in reaching patients who reside in rural areas. The major problem though is that many doctors have limited strategies and knowledge in the way they can use telehealth technologies in rural areas. The purpose of this proposal is to determine the best implementation strategy for telehealth technologies that would improve the access to healthcare. The proposal outlines the phases to be followed in implanting telehealth technology and the budget it would need.
Literature Support for Telehealth
Doctors are continuously faced with different difficult decisions as healthcare systems change in complexity. According to Cady, Finkelstein & Kelly, 2009), as healthcare systems grow in complexity, they give rise to a number of feedback loops that that have the potential of affecting decision-making. In rural areas, the major problem is lack of health professions that limit their ability to have access to quality health (Cady et al., 2009). The researchers, in their study on accessibility to medicine, established that 2% of doctors care for 20% of patients. The researchers made a conclusion that telehealth was important in providing urgent care for people in the rural areas.
In an effort to determine how practicable it was to introduce telehealth in rural and urban areas, “American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing”, 2007), conducted a study. The goal of the researchers was to determine the need for telehealth, the ability of the health practitioners to use telehealth systems, and the effective ways of implementing telehealth technology. According to the researchers, most health practitioners were willing to learn how to use telehealth technologies. The major conclusion by the researchers was that implementing telehealth technology in rural areas could help save patients’ time and money and improve the quality of healthcare.
Jones, Tschirch & Liong, (2006), implied that it is important to use telehealth technologies in control of major diseases especially hypertension. The study by the researchers established that when healthcare use telehealth technology, hypertension among patients would be reduced. There is a wide spread acceptance of telehealth technologies by both the rural and the urban population. It is important for healthcare professionals to employ effective strategies to ensure that all people get medical services in a timely manner regardless of their location. The authors argued that there are important opportunities that can be integrated in telehealth to ensure that patients get quality care. Further, the researchers established that telehealth treatment approach could come in handy for those that cannot traditionally get health services. However, the authors emphasized that adequate training is needed if the healthcare professionals are to effectively use telehealth technologies
In a study conducted by Vinson et al. (2011) to determine the telepharmacy effect in healthcare setting, they established that the systems did extend working hours but shortened time taken to complete “transcription orders”. Moreover, patients got better services and incurred less costs related to pharmacy. Importantl y (Rutenberg & Oberle, 2008), argued that telehealth makes it possible for healthcare professionals to offer information and services to patients that might never have been able to obtain the same services because of the distance between them and the clinics. Telehealth provides the ability to improve access by enabling healthcare providers to remotely monitor, treat and diagnose patients. Telehealth has been practiced for long and yet it is still evolving. It is therefore the duty of physicians to identify any problems that may exist.
The accessibility gap in the rural areas in many countries is almost similar. A study conducted in Australia by Dillon & Loermans (2003), established that employing telehealth increased the speed of access to health at a lower cost. The researchers also established that there was inequality in the distribution of medical services and that those living in the urban areas had better and improved access and that using telehealth could help bridge the gap. A study conducted in India by Wootton (2009) established that nearly 60% of the population still lived in rural areas sixty years after independence. The fact that the larger number of the population lives in rural area means that more number of people do not get quality healthcare services. And yet the communication technology in India is developing rapidly but still, the technology is confined to urban settings whereas the rural areas are still lugging behind. According to Mishra, Kapoor & Singh (2009), those countries that have inadequate access to healthcare services like India should strive to adopt telehealth technologies. Effective adoption of these technologies requires adequate addressing of issues related to maintenance of s...