In our current healthcare system, many people and employers are struggling to find affordable, convenient care. Costs continue to rise, and the growing physician shortage has led to increasingly long wait times to get care. To address these issues, we must find innovative ways to facilitate hassle-free, cost-effective access to doctors. Technology has revolutionized almost every industry in the modern world. It changes the way we drive, the way we communicate, the way we eat and sleep, and even the fabric of the traditional 8 to 5 workdays. It is hard to imagine not being able to instantly text or call someone on the other side of the country or not being able to check your email while in the car. Almost every aspect of modern life has been made faster and more convenient through telecommunications technology. Except health care. Even as technology has improved, access to health care has worsened for many Americans. The Affordable Care Act may have increased the number of people with health insurance, but the fact is that health care remains unaffordable and inconvenient for most people. An increasing percentage of health insurance plans have expensive premiums, sky-high deductibles, and costly copays. People are paying for care that they can hardly afford to use. Plus, physician shortages mean absurdly long wait times, especially in crowded cities. Patients are resorting to urgent cares and emergency rooms, making care even more expensive. Patients in rural areas face an even greater challenge: rural hospitals are closing, meaning long drive times and limited access to specialists in their area. Employers are also struggling with rising costs. Unable to sustain their current benefit levels, they have been forced to reduce benefits and shift health care costs to employees through higher premiums, deductibles, and copays. Technological advances have done little to help these worrying trends. But there is a solution that could help millions of Americans get more affordable, convenient access to care: telehealth. Telehealth is a solution that helps combat these trends, but it has not yet lived up to its expectations. Many of the current products in the market are ineffective, because brokers, insurance companies, and major telehealth companies are more concerned with their own profits than with providing real solutions. But with more education and utilization, telehealth could revolutionize the healthcare industry and provide better access to care for millions of Americans that need it. "Telehealth," put simply, means using telecommunications technology to provide remote care. The term encompasses any use of telecommunications technology in the medical field, even faxing a prescription to a pharmacy, but typically when people use the word "telehealth" or "telemedicine," they are talking about virtual doctor visits. With these telehealth services, patients can call or video conference with a doctor instead of going into a physicians' office, urgent care, or other site of care. The doctors can diagnosis, treat, and manage illnesses and other medical conditions remotely. This lowers the overall cost to deliver care as well as reduces the total time involved for the patient and provider. Telehealth brings the medical care to the patient, wherever they are. It enables patients to get the care they need, without sacrificing valuable time or money to get it. Most importantly, the book is based on the recognition that patients need better health care options and telehealth is vital to health care's future if delivered properly.

The first complete guide to the rapidly expanding field of telehealth From email to videoconferencing, telehealth puts real-time healthcare solutions at patients’ and clinicians’ fingertips. Every year, the field continues to evolve, enhancing access to healthcare, supporting clinicians, and improving the patient experience. However, since telehealth is in its infancy, no text has offered a comprehensive, definitive survey of this up-and-coming field—until now. Written by past presidents of the American Telemedicine Association, Understanding Telehealth explains how clinical applications leveraging telehealth technology are optimizing healthcare delivery. In addition, this timely resource examines the bedrock principles of telehealth and highlights the safety standards involved in the diagnosis and treatment of patients through digital communications. Logically organized and supported by high-yield clinical vignettes, the book begins with essential background information, including a look at telehealth history, definitions and roles, and rural health. It then provides an overview of clinical services for adults, from telestroke to telepsychiatry. The third section addresses pediatric clinical services, encompassing pediatric emergency and critical care, telecardiology, and more. A groundbreaking resource: •Chapters cover a broad spectrum of technologies, evidence-based guidelines, and application of telehealth across the healthcare continuum •Ideal for medical staff, public healthcare executives, hospitals, clinics, payors, healthcare advocates, and researchers alike •Incisive coverage of the legal and regulatory environment underpinning telehealth practice

Clinics Collections: Depression draws from Elsevier’s robust Clinics Review Articles database to provide multidisciplinary teams, including psychiatrists, general practitioners, and pediatricians, with practical clinical advice and insights on how telehealth can be implemented in individual specialties. Clinics Collections: Telehealth guides readers on how to apply current best practices in the implementation of telehealth to everyday practice to help overcome patient challenges and complications, keep up with new and advanced treatment methods, and improve patient outcomes. Areas of focus include implementation of telehealth in pediatric care, sleep medicine, gynecology and women’s health, and telepsychiatry. Each article begins with keywords and key points for immediate access to the most critical information. Articles are presented in an easy-to-digest and concisely worded format.

Telemedicine and telehealth have consistently been shown to be effective for remote areas or limited-resource locations, regular medical and surgical practice, primary care, second opinion, extreme conditions, major crises, and disaster management. The aim of this book is to bring all aspects of telemedicine and e-health to the reader, in a simple, make-sense approach, in one tome. The book is structured in four parts with 29 chapters written by the best experts in the field from around the world, including clinicians, scientists, and administrators of telemedicine programs. Part I deals with basic principles of telemedicine and telepresence. Historical journeys of telemedicine and strategies, building sustainable telemedicine and telehealth programs in the United States and in the Balkans, as well as incorporation of telemedicine in the current ongoing pandemic COVID-19 are well described and are must read. Current technological developments, rules and regulations, legal and business aspects and consent are also addressed. Part II describes strategies for building sustainable telemedicine and telehealth programs. Telehealth patient portals and public-private partnership modes of technology, as well the role of international telemedicine and how to make it work, are valuable chapters of great significance. Part III describes outcomes-based evidence clinical applications of telemedicine in trauma, burns, intensive care, pediatric care, psychiatry, and stroke. Finally, one important chapter for the readers is the telemedicine for prison and jail population. The final part, Part IV depicts surgical telementoring and teleproctoring, a chapter written by 18 various surgical experts, a true gem for the readers. The book ends with promises and hurdles of telemedicine in austere conditions. Telemedicine, Telehealth and Telepresence serves as a valuable resource that focuses on providing patients care from a distance using store and forward technology to live actual performance of operations at a distance.Chapters 1, 6, 12 and 17 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book investigates how the technology used by telehealth services shapes our healthcare, and how we, as humans, collectively change and shape the technology and services used in healthcare. Based on extensive field research on telehealth services in Australia and Brazil, the book reveals some surprisingly obvious conclusions about our powers to shape the society.

Telemedicine, which involves electronic communications and software, provides the same clinical services to patients without the requirement of an in-person visit. Essentially, this is considered remote healthcare. Though telemedicine is not a new practice, it has become an increasingly popular form of healthcare delivery due to current events, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only are visits being moved onto virtual platforms, but additional materials and correspondence can remain in the digital sphere. Virtual lab results, digital imaging, medical diagnosis, and video consultations are just a few examples that encompass how telemedicine can be used for increased accessibility in healthcare delivery. With telemedicine being used in both the diagnosis and treatment of patients, technology in healthcare can be implemented at almost any phase of the patient experience. As healthcare delivery follows the digital shift, it is important to understand the technologies, benefits and challenges, and overall impacts of the remote healthcare experience. The Research Anthology on Telemedicine Efficacy, Adoption, and Impact on Healthcare Delivery presents the latest research on best practices for adopting telehealth into medical practices and its efficacy and solutions for the improvement of telemedicine, as well as addresses emerging challenges and opportunities, including issues such as securing patient data and providing healthcare accessibility to rural populations. Covering important themes that include doctor-patient relationships, tele-wound monitoring, and telemedicine regulations, this book is essential for healthcare professionals, doctors, medical students, academic and medical libraries, medical technologists, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the emerging technological developments and solutions within the field of telemedicine.

Telemedicine and telehealth are changing the face of health care delivery and becoming a multi-billion dollar industry. Dr. Darkins and Dr. Cary share their knowledge and provide practical insights and advice on making telemedicine programs into successful clinical services and a productive business. The book gives background knowledge and useful tips on starting up and managing programs in an array of settings. Most importantly, the book is based on the recognition that patients are customers of health care and telemedicine companies developing new products vital to delivering care to rural or inaccessible clients is vital to health care's future.