What are the benefits of telemedicine that support quality initiatives?
Telemedicine allows remote and primary care providers to seek professional advice from expert physicians at the tertiary levels (Bashshur &Shanon, 2009). This enables the patients in remote areas receive expert diagnosis without physical contact. Furthermore, more people are reached using telemedicine since large medical centers can integrate their services across many remote health centers. This improves the healthcare system.
How can organizations minimize potential risks and maximize safeguards when using telemedicine?
Organizations should ensure that they have reliable and accurate technology. Since telemedicine relies heavily on communication technology, accurate and reliable technology would minimize risks of miscommunication and enhance understanding of the diagnosis. Furthermore, the communication technology should be enabled to follow-up on a patient. This would maximize the effectiveness of telemedicine through telenursing a patient who is under bed-rest.
What are the educational and training needs for telemedicine?
Telemedicine clinicians should assess the most appropriate methods of delivering their services (Loane & Wootton, 2002). The lack of face-to-face communication means that chances of miscommunication are high. As such, these clinicians need to be trained on how to assess, evaluate and diagnose a patient over the phone and deliver an appropriate diagnosis. Ambiguity in a diagnosis can lead to prescription error.
How might the educational and training needs vary by the employee’s role in the organization?
The educational needs vary because the employees have different professions such as doctors, nurses and lab technicians. However, the training does not vary because in telemedicine, all the employees are required to be trained on proper communication. Telemedicine relies heavily on communication and therefore all employees should be well-trained on how to administer healthcare over telecommunication technology.