Manager’s Role in Technology: Telemedicine

Manager’s Role in Technology: Telemedicine

Modern healthcare has become closely related to technology. Current trends in healthcare are the application of information communication technologies to support care delivery. This article identifies telemedicine as a technology in healthcare, how to integrate telemedicine in an elderly care facility, the manager’s role in technology adoption initiatives, the impact of telemedicine in health organizations, and the benefits of supporting quality care outcomes.

Telemedicine as a Technology Trend in Healthcare

Telemedicine is basically the delivery of basic healthcare practices, such as the treatment and diagnosis of remote patients within a virtual system. Telemedicine allows healthcare professionals such as physicians and nurses to utilize video or phone applications such as calls to set patient appointments, follow up with patients, and deliver care services remotely via phone or video calls (Hasselfield, 2022). Through the use of telephone, video, or other video conferencing services over the Internet or via normal telephone networks, patients and physicians can interact without physical visits or meetings. Telemedicine aims to improve the efficiency of interactions between patients, physicians, and other members of the care delivery teams. Telemedicine has been in existence in healthcare for a while; however, its use has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How Telemedicine Will Integrate into an Elderly Care Organization

The United States, like other developed countries, is experiencing a growing aging population with a high prevalence of chronic diseases that require continued home-based care (Demirbilek et al., 2019). These elderly patients under home care require visits by health care practitioners to ensure the continuity of care throughout the rest of their lives. This creates a strain on the available healthcare professionals in the field of elderly care and geriatrics. Telemedicine provides an opportunity to improve the delivery of home-based healthcare to geriatric patients. Telemedicine will be integrated into elderly care organizations to support the scheduling of care as well as enable an individual healthcare professional to provide care services to multiple elderly patients remotely and efficiently. The health professionals will use telemedicine to coordinate care delivery to elderly patients and direct other non-professional caregivers on how to manage elderly patients at home safely.

Manager’s Role in the Entire Process of Selection, Implementation, Integration, and Evaluation of Telemedicine

The manager plays a central role in selecting, implementing, integrating, and evaluating new technology like telemedicine in healthcare. The manager establishes the vision that the entire technology project is based on. The manager is responsible for setting up a team of professionals to identify the available options and select the best option. The manager also justifies and approves the budget for new technology and ensures that the costs of adopting the new technologies remain at a minimum. They also ensure the entire process meets the deadlines of full adoption to best contribute to the development of value for both the organization and the patients. Additionally, as adopting new technologies requires a change of processes and practices, managers ensure that the users are well-trained in the use of the new technology and take the organization through the change process.

Impact of Telemedicine on Users within the Organization

Telemedicine application in geriatric care during the COVID-19 pandemic provided that it had the potential to support the provision of essential care services to older people despite the existence of geographical and physical barriers (Doraiswamy et al., 2021). As noted, telemedicine enables healthcare professionals to better schedule patient care services and enables a single provider to efficiently attend to multiple patients. Telemedicine contributes to doctors’ comfort and convenience in healthcare service delivery (Hasselfield, 2022). The elimination of the need for physical visits to attend to various patients in different locations reduces the strain on the care providers. This can help healthcare users balance work and personal life as they can work and deliver care remotely. This means that telemedicine can help users manage and avoid instances of burnout due to work overloads, physical strain from traveling around to attend to patients, and a lack of personal time.

Benefits of Telemedicine that Supports Quality Outcomes

Telemedicine has multiple benefits in health care that contribute to quality outcomes. The emergence of diseases such as the COVID-19 pandemic restricts access to essential services due to restricted personal movement and physical interactions (Doraiswamy et al., 2021). As such, healthcare organizations use telemedicine to improve the delivery of care services to patients with limited access to healthcare services which impacts the quality of health of the population and patients. As telemedicine allows for continuous observation and efficiency of access to healthcare professionals, it allows for early identification of symptoms and diagnoses, which may help combat diseases before they progress. Additionally, telemedicine in care delivery supports the coordination of care delivery efforts for care services to patients, which impacts not only patient outcomes but also the quality and costs of care services (Davidson et al., 2020).

Conclusion

The use of telemedicine in care delivery has a great impact on users within and outside of healthcare organizations. Managers are critical in the adoption and development of telemedicine in care. With effective management, telemedicine can transform the healthcare industry in terms of affordability and accessibility of healthcare services, equity, collaboration, costs, quality, and safety of care.

References

Davidson, R., Barrett, D. I., Rixon, L., Newman, S., & Program, A. (2020). How the Integration of Telehealth and Coordinated Care Approaches Impact Health Care Service Organization Structure and Ethos: Mixed Methods Study. JMIR Nursing, 3(1), e20282. https://doi.org/10.2196/20282

Demirbilek, M., Branke, J., & Strauss, A. (2019). Dynamically accepting and scheduling patients for home healthcare. Health Care Management Science, 22(1), 140–155. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10729-017-9428-0/TABLES/15

Doraiswamy, S., Jithesh, A., Mamtani, R., Abraham, A., & Cheema, S. (2021). Telehealth Use in Geriatrics Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Scoping Review and Evidence Synthesis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/IJERPH18041755

Hasselfield, W. B. (2022). Benefits of Telemedicine. Johns Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/benefits-of-

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Getting ready for the assignment:
Select 1 technology trend for this assignment. Examples of technology trends could include:
Telemedicine
Optical imagery for diagnosing disease
EHRs
Telehealth
Video translation services
Dictation software
Medical equipment
Health care robots
Neural engineering
Intelligent mobile devices
National health care information network
A technology trend approved by your faculty

Research management’s role in the technology you selected and the benefits of it that support the quality outcomes.

Manager’s Role in Technology- Telemedicine

Assignment Directions:
Write a 700- to 1,050-word summary in which you:
Identify your chosen technology trend.
Explain how this technology will integrate into a specific type of organization.
Explain the manager’s role in the entire process of selection, implementation, integration, and evaluation of the new technology.
Explain what impact the technology trend has on users within the organization.
Explain the benefits of the selected technology that support quality outcomes.

Cite 2 peer-reviewed, scholarly, or similar references to support your assignment.