INFOGRAPHIC

infographics are visual representations of information. They can include numbers, text, images, or any combination of the three. Just as in traditional writing assignments, an infographic can take on any of the various rhetorical modes — informative, instructive, descriptive, persuasive, etc. Infographics provide quick way to convey a lot of information. For example, this infographic on Integrating Virtual Clinics conveys interesting data much more concisely than another paragraph inserted here could have:

Students will create an Infographic on the topic of Telehealth. Students should create an infographic that is easily understood by the lay public or general population. The infographic should provide information useful to communicating the “What, Why, When and How” of Telehealth. Students may choose to focus on one or more the following suggested topic areas, however, students may choose their own relevant telehealth topic areas of:

Telehealth Versus Telemedicine
Environments or Systems
Population Health
Health Promotion and Illness Prevention
Integrative Health
Technologies and Innovation
Provider Access
Patient Access
Policy Implications
Legal Implications
Clinical Practice Issues
Education/Training Needs
Research Implications
Quality of Care
Outcome Management
Directions:

Students will select a platform (tool) for building their infographic. There are a number of great infographic platforms available online. Many are free, but most require that you do set up an account. Check out Infogr.am, Easelly, Piktochart, and Visme.
Create the Infographic using one of the above platforms.

ANSWER

Telemedicine and Telehealth

With the advancement in technology and healthcare practices, there have been new ways of providing healthcare that has begun to merge. Telemedicine and Telehealth have led to new ways through which patient’s information is transmitted and access to healthcare. Telemedicine and Telehealth are two terms that have commonly used in the medical field. Understanding the variation between the two terms is vital in understanding their role in the health sector. This paper will focus on explaining the different roles of telemedicine and telehealth and how they are important in the health sector. Telehealth varies from telemedicine since it comprises to a wider range of remote healthcare amenities than telemedicine (Cranford, 2020). Telehealth can be referred to as remote non-clinical service while telemedicine entails remote clinical services.

Ideally, telemedicine has a broader scope as compared to telehealth. Telemedicine refers to education and the provision of care over a distance through the utilization of telecommunications technology. Telemedicine uses electronic communications and information technologies to offer remote clinical services. Examples of telemedicine include remote medical diagnosis, medical imaging and video consultations and evaluations with health professionals or specialists. Therefore, telemedicine has improved patient outcomes through the use of ICT and increased access to medical information as well as care. Considerably, the provision of healthcare services where distance is considered as a vital factor by the healthcare professionals using ICT to allow the interchange of vital information such as treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of diseases has evolved the provision of care as well as adapted to the changing health needs.

Telemedicine is solely grounded on treating and diagnosing the patient devoid of an in-person visit. Telemedicine has held great potential in lowering the variety of diagnoses as well as enhancing the delivery of care and clinical management. (Gogia, 2019). As compared to the traditional techniques of the provision of care, telemedicine can enhance quality, access, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency. Considerably, telemedicine can improve communication in rural and remote areas with few staff health professionals and health services.

The most common technique has been telephone conversations and video chats or through secure emails and websites. For instance, specialists have relied on telemedicine for pathology and radiology since the images can be sent and interpreted effectively. In 2009, an eEmergency was created to offer electronic immediate access to emergency to help the rural physicians with a diagnosis for various patients. The integrated system is part of telemedicine since it offers better access to care and specialized physicians.

Telehealth varies from telemedicine since it entails a broader scope of remote clinical services. Ideally, it focuses on a wide range of remote health services and non-clinical services such as the provision of training and education lessons (Krupinski and Bernard, 2014). Therefore, telehealth can be considered as computer-based communication between the provider to provider and provider to patient. For instance, the healthcare providers rely on emails to connect with other physicians and patients. Telehealth has also been used to provide literature as well as access to medical knowledge. There are two common websites that are known for offering health information; Health line and WebMD. However, this does not mean that these replace the expertise or going to the actual physician to acquire an accurate diagnosis.

In summation, Telehealth and telemedicine vary slightly in terms of clinical care and remote healthcare. With the ever-increasing and evolving technology, the digital world has led to improved affordability and quality of healthcare in the world. Telehealth and telemedicine applications have successfully improved the accessibility and quality of medical care \by allowing distant providers to diagnose, evaluate, treat and follow up on the patients.

References

Cranford, L. (2020). Telemedicine vs. Telehealth: What’s the Difference.

Gogia, S. (Ed.). (2019). Fundamentals of Telemedicine and Telehealth. Academic Press.

Krupinski, E. A., & Bernard, J. (2014, March). Standards and guidelines in telemedicine and telehealth. In Healthcare (Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 74-93). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.