Summary of Telehealth (Care on Demand). Paper Example

Bethesda Hospital East management's decision to introduce the use of telehealth as a cost control policy started in 2013. Care on-demand and electronic medical records (EMR) systems are telehealth services leading in ensuring that patient care is improved through the provision of vital healthcare services ("Care On Demand | Bethesda Hospital East," 2020). Care on demand is a virtual health platform that was adopted for multiple departments. Different specialties get a chance to treat patients' needs through the platform. The telehealth policy helps to address the issue of convenience. Patients prefer to access healthcare professionals from home at their own convenient time. Failure to follow the existing telehealth policy on the organizational level will lead to a drop in several patients receiving healthcare services at Bethesda Hospital. Patients will be forced to make a physical appearance at hospitals, making it inconvenient for staff personnel to administer quality services. At the unit level, failure to follow telehealth policy means that the departments will be failing in their services due to inadequate plans. On an individual level, failure to follow telehealth policies results in unproductivity. Healthcare professionals are going to be forced to manually carry out their duties, which eventually reduces the output of their work.

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Telehealth Impact on fiscal aspects of Bethesda Hospital

Telehealth policy offers Bethesda an opportunity to generate revenues through opportunities created through virtual care. The use of remote analysis services makes it possible for the organization to have trained professionals working together to pool resources. The remote services will reduce costs through fractional employment of personnel who get to serve patients throughout the day, even with limited facilities. The care on-demand virtual care allows patients to be monitored at their homes instead of on an inpatient basis. The high costs of inpatient monitoring are reduced, allowing the organization to invest in other patient care programs. The cost of emergency room visits is high because the organization spends a lot in staffing and administration of emergency services. Virtual care programs reduce costs associated with emergency care because the patients do not necessarily have to visit emergency rooms (Jennett, Hall, Hailey, Ohinmaa, Anderson, Thomas & Scott, 2003).

The adoption of the Emergency medical records system is the best way to ensure that physicians and patients receive information on their status promptly. EMR, therefore, acts as a cost control because physicians perform their work efficiently, allowing them to increase the number of patients served at a given time. The Bethesda Hospital physicians will get an opportunity to offer virtual appointments, therefore, reducing the amount of unutilized capacity that usually goes to waste from physical appointments. The organization will be able to get revenues from a fee charged for virtual patient care at reducing system costs.

Telehealth Impact on Patient Care

Telehealth is improving patient care through an increased number of patients who can access Bethesda's clinical services. Patients who have been discharged can still get in touch with their physicians, who then help them in monitoring their conditions and recovery process. Patients who are facing challenges accessing hospitals get an opportunity to get access to a medical specialist in the comfort of their homes. Bethesda is using telehealth to offer support to patients in ICU. ICU patient care improves when supported through telehealth programs because of reduced complications and hospital inpatient time. Yes, the telehealth policy improves efficiency through the promotion of hospital productivity. The staff of Bethesda can offer services to employees at any given time anywhere. The electronic documentation of health records assists the staff in accessing the information on a patient at one point and instantly reducing time spend manually accessing patients' data. The policy also promotes improved health care while reducing costs for both the patients and the healthcare facility. Home monitoring of chronic diseases, for instance, reduces patients' costs on visits. The telehealth programs also assist patients in reducing readmission due to negligence when they sign up for virtual monitoring because the system helps to point out practices and behaviors likely to lead to readmission (Kruse, Krowski, Rodriguez, Tran, Vela & Brooks, 2017).

Unintended Consequences of Telehealth Policy

The telehealth policy has secondary effects on organizational stakeholders such as units, staff, and patients. The organization could face challenges transforming from traditional methods to telehealth practices. The costs of maintaining telehealth programs are high and can be costly for Bethesda Hospital if the programs fail to return on investment. The different units in Bethesda Hospital might find it challenging to implement the policy for fear of patients' security on their privacy. The failure of interoperability within hospital units can lead to complications in carrying out virtual monitoring of patients. The patients might lose their face-to-face relationship with doctors if the organization decides to go on a virtual care program. Virtual monitoring denies patients a chance to bond with doctors. There are types of diseases that require the physical appearance of the patient in a hospital because they cannot be diagnosed virtually. The telehealth policy requires revision by increasing the IT staff who are responsible for monitoring the hospital systems. The IT department is understaffed, and in the event of telehealth failure, it usually takes time to recover the systems because of view IT staff (Gogia, Maeder, Mars, Hartvigsen, Basu & Abbott, 2016).

Alternatives to Policy

I think the telehealth policy is the best way to address hospital costs. The costs of healthcare have gone up in the past, but through telehealth, patients get a chance to spend less while receiving quality care. Healthcare facilities still get a chance to increase revenue using technology, which is now a trend in healthcare practices. Telehealth saves costs on overhead because Bethesda's physicians get to work at the comfort of their office, saving on time and money spent on employee turnover.

References

Care on Demand | Bethesda Hospital East. (2020). Retrieved 2 February 2020, from https://www.bethesdaweb.com/care-on-demand

Gogia, S. B., Maeder, A., Mars, M., Hartvigsen, G., Basu, A., & Abbott, P. (2016). Unintended Consequences of TeleHealth and their Possible Solutions. Contribution of the IMIA Working Group on Telehealth. Yearbook of medical informatics, (1), 41-46. doi:10.15265/IY-2016-012

Jennett, P. A., Hall, L. A., Hailey, D., Ohinmaa, A., Anderson, C., Thomas, R., & Scott, R. E. (2003). The socio-economic impact of telehealth: a systematic review. Journal of telemedicine and telecare, 9(6), 311-320. https://doi.org/10.1258/135763303771005207

Kruse, C. S., Krowski, N., Rodriguez, B., Tran, L., Vela, J., & Brooks, M. (2017). Telehealth and patient satisfaction: a systematic review and narrative analysis. BMJ Open, 7(8), e016242.