Is Telehealth and Online Nursing Better for Patients’ Well-Being?

Telehealth technology allows people to get medical advice through the phone. It’s a convenient way to take care of yourself. Who wouldn’t want to skip the waiting rooms and get healthcare from home?

But is this technology actually good for patients, or do its limitations make it an impractical alternative to traditional care? In this article, we examine if online nursing and telehealth services are good for patient outcomes.

Here’s the Short Answer

Probably not better. To say that a patient will achieve a more ideal outcome by communicating with the healthcare system via phone instead of in person seems inaccurate. There is certainly a potential for something like that to be true in the future. Wearable healthcare technology is quickly becoming more affordable and ubiquitous.

These devices can’t quite replace the services of a trained medical professional, but they can cooperate with them. For example, if a fitness tracker can monitor your heartrate and blood pressure, you don’t necessarily need to go into the doctor’s office

Theoretically, this technology could combine with telehealth applications to provide a service that is more or less identical to that of your traditional doctor’s appointment. The physician receives your vitals. Then you have your typical assessment, and the appointment takes only a matter of minutes instead of hours.

This isn’t quite how telehealth appointments unfold now. Currently, you still need to come into the doctor’s office to have certain things done, which limits the application of telehealth. Still, there are important benefits that come from this technology.

Accessibility

The obvious and most important benefit of telehealth technology is that it opens the door to healthcare for so many people. There are many reasons why it can be hard to get to the doctor’s office. Maybe the patient is physically disabled. Or they don’t have consistent access to transportation. Or they are elderly. Or, they simply live in an area where hospitals are few and far between.

This is certainly the case in many rural parts of the country. There, single hospitals may service enormous geographical locations. Telehealth technology tears down that barrier for everyone. With a few clicks, even a very isolated patient can receive high-quality care.

For the Hospital

The hospital can also benefit from telehealth technology. Highly trafficked offices tend to be very slow. When one doctor needs to see thirty-five plus patients a day—a more than reasonable estimate—it can be next to impossible to stay on track. Someone will be late. Another person will have lots of questions.

These variables can lead to significant delays. It’s not at all uncommon for afternoon appointments to run more than an hour behind schedule. The patients who have to wait get mad. The staff becomes frustrated and stressed out.

Stir in the hospital staffing shortages that are impacting most regions of the country, and the problem deepens.

Telehealth appointments make it easier to get people in and out quickly. Some of the burden is lifted from the staff, increasing morale, and the doctor has a little more time to apply to all of their appointments. It’s a benefit that extends to both the patient and the people taking care of them.

The Drawback

One of the unfortunate ironies of telehealth technology is that the same people who stand to benefit the most from it often experience the most barriers to it. It is, by nature, a tool that requires a degree of digital fluency and access.

This is something that many people in elderly populations and rural communities don’t have. This concept is referred to as the digital divide. Basically, the difference between people who have access to digital technology and those who do not.

Digital fluency in elderly populations is growing slightly as more and more people who have had access to computers for decades age into this category. Still, it’s a long way from unanimous adoption.

In rural communities, lack of access often owes to two factors: financial and physical inequality. On the financial end of the equation, it’s simply a statistical fact that rural communities typically fall into a lower income bracket than people living in the city. This may make it difficult to gain access to the tools required for telehealth services.

There’s also an infrastructural problem. Rural communities have notoriously poor access to wifi because it’s logistically hard for wifi companies to accomplish. Supplying wifi to geographically remote areas is enormously expensive, and often not financially justifiable based on the number of people who will be doing business with the company.

These pain points unfortunately make telehealthcare something of a luxury service. Legislative action will likely be required to help negotiate the challenges of the digital divide. For now, telehealth services are an important tool, with enormous potential that may be realized somewhere down the line.