Delivery of Nursing Intervention via Telehealth
There are positive results obtained in delivering nursing intervention using telehealth despite its challenges. However, expansion and advancement of a telehealth system require one to solve these setbacks to have efficient and convenient care delivery. When it comes to mass inoculation programs, data, and information exchange networks serve a great deal in controlling pandemics such as influenza. Automated systems have rendered detection of epidemics easier than ever. This essay also looks into some ethical considerations that apply to EHR and interoperability. Although medical practitioners have different moral stands, an ethical framework helps them make better choices.
Delivery of Nursing Intervention via Telehealth
Article Title
Challenges and Opportunities of Yukon Telehealth System in Remote Communities
Database
The usage logs were the source of quantitative data. Nurses in all the fourteen Yukon community centers who had used telehealth filled web-based questionnaires. For the qualitative data, the study opted for interviews and focus groups of 36 stakeholders of the telehealth (Seto et al., 2019).
Key Points
Telehealth reduces cost and simultaneously increases health care access to patients in rural areas. Nonetheless, unique challenges arise in these remote settings upon the implementation of telemedicine there. The research explores the utility, opportunities, and threats of the Telehealth system in Yukon (Seto et al., 2019). Notably, there are vital factors that need consideration in the advancement and expansion of telehealth programs in rural communities.
Findings Summary
Other than saving costs by reducing travel, the system provides access to care in a timely fashion. However, they had outdated equipment, and the community underutilized the telehealth system. The study identified four factors worth considering in expanding and advancing a telehealth program. First, the negative experiences need addressing as the systems get advanced (Seto et al., 2019). Psychiatry, orthopedics, and dermatology services expansion are beneficial and viable in Yukon. The second factor was automating and streamlining the telehealth schedule. This way, the tendency to over-rely on the technical coordinator reduces. Third, access to updated telehealth technology should be easy. Leveraging mobile technology and other consumer product should be appropriate. Finally, technology and human resources need establishing when telehealth gets expanded and advanced.
Applicability to Patient Population
In 2017, the telehealth system served 38,450 dwellers in Yukon. They use it for clinical education, administration, and clinical care. Locally, all the fourteen had a one telehealth unit. A single telehealth coordinator manages the system. Patients travel to the telehealth unit site to take part in telehealth sessions scheduled. Since 2008, there are about one thousand sessions every year. Out of 115867 specialist consultations, 4.6% got delivered through the telehealth system (Seto et al., 2019).
Table 1: Use of Telehealth in Delivery of Nursing Intervention
Mass Inoculation Program
One needs public health data to recognize the need for a large-scale inoculation program for a new influenza strain posing a threat. The data includes environmental health, preparedness systems, surveillance, and information of clients. The latter comprises of report and analysis laboratory results as well as the immunization registries. Public health informatics specialists use these types of data to get that influenza outbreak, patterns of the new strain. Together with other data, research in public health advances besides rendering diagnosis and treatment decisions highly accurate (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015).
The success of a program like that one requires a network for the exchange of information collected at regional and national levels. It increases surveillance participation and activities of prevention (Hoy & Frith, 2019). Furthermore, care coordination and case management improve. There also occurs timeliness and accuracy for reporting the disease. One can base prevention responses by harnessing social data in real-time. The data then gets aggregated to make more meaning. For instance, when internet searches are related to the symptoms of influenza, school closure is a prevention response. With prevention informatics, data, tools, technology, and systems, proactive responses tackle the international health challenge.
One obtains data processed into PHI from the facility, administrative, and financial sources. Integrating the personal health record and the EHR makes clinicians aware of population-level alerts. The current systems developed detects occurrences of pandemics early (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). Incorporating geographic systems of information allows the mapping of influenza at particular locations and interventions taken there. Public health departments receive alerts from HER when reportable conditions and symptoms of disease get encountered. With statistical signals and automated data, health department staff can detect disease outbreaks relatively early. The national strategy meets three crucial goals. First, it detects infestation in both animals and humans worldwide. Second, it stockpiles antiviral drugs and vaccines, besides improving the capacity of the production of new ones (Hoy & Frith, 2019). Finally, it is ready to respond to pandemic influenza at the local, state, and federal levels.
Interoperability and Shared EHR Ethical Consideration
The digital communication era continues to evolve. Consequently, the patient’s rights of autonomy, confidentiality, and privacy is a concern for healthcare professionals. The healthcare providers are to make ethical decisions flexibly and systematically. The nonmaleficence concept broadens because they are to enter a professional relationship without meeting in person. Organizations have to provide content of high quality while ensuring the protection of the user’s privacy (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). As much as universal information access enhances justice and autonomy, it creates relationship tensions between care providers and patients. By embracing this information empowerment, healthcare workers are to suggest accurate and reliable websites to patients.
While using expert systems, clinicians ought to consider a patient’s wish, belief, and other clinically unique circumstances of each individual. Therefore, clinicians need a framework to make wise choices. This endeavor requires ethically incorporated informatics tools and focusing on the outcomes of the patients (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). Notably, colleagues reach different ethical decisions depending on how each one understands ethics as well as the situational facts. This diversity calls for the utilization of moral imagination. This way, they reach competent, ethical decisions. The challenges caused by the union of healthcare and informatics also requires robust yet comprehensive ethics theory.
As a competent clinician, one should be aware of the profession’s ethical dilemmas and their solution. Informatics competency is also handy because technology is remodeling healthcare practices. When ethical dilemmas arise from interoperability and EHRs, the provision of an ethical framework that considers all stakeholders is crucial (Souza-Junior, 2016). The framework guides providers of care as they collect, store, manipulate, and disseminate electronic data and information. Healthcare institutions also need a model that analyses and synthesizes ethical dilemmas into an action plan. It is to make medical workers think through a situation critically. Ultimately, a nurse objectively becomes sure of the dilemma’s essence and makes a plan to act (Souza-Junior, 2016).
In conclusion, telehealth makes access to healthcare easier while saving on travel costs at the same time. However, it has problems that need solving before expanding or advancing it. For a mass inoculation program, one needs to have relevant data. A network for information exchange is equally handy. Notably, geographic systems enable mapping and intervention of pandemics. There is ethical consideration to acknowledge with this digital era of EHR and interoperability. Nonmaleficence and a patient’s belief are cases in point. Finally, medical practitioners must have an ethical framework to guide their actions.
References
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (Eds.). (2015). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Seto, E., Smith, D., Jacques, M., & Morita, P. P. (2019, November 1). Opportunities and challenges of Telehealth in remote communities: Case study of the Yukon Telehealth system. JMIR Medical Informatics. https://medinform.jmir.org/2019/4/e11353/
Hoy, H., & Frith, K. H. (Eds.). (2017). Applied clinical informatics for nurses. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Souza-Junior, V. D., Mendes, I. A. C., Mazzo, A., & Godoy, S. (2016). Application of telenursing in nursing practice: an integrative literature review. Applied nursing research, 29, 254-260.