At the Millennium of technical progress, any aspect of human’s life can not remain untouchable. Digital inventions modify the world every day. There are dozens of examples such as cell phones, computers, the Internet. Changes happen in the medical industry as well. One the most recent approaches stand for the home monitoring technology that is patients will be able to perform some analysis without any doctor’s physical presence. Even though these tendencies could be beneficial for health care and can have a good impact on work efficiency, the money issues, security problems and costs for settlement can interfere with the program launching.
Rationale for Chosen Topic
The emergence of the chosen topic is conditioned by the great potential that monitoring devices can bring to the world of health care. More precisely the main goal of the work is to consider the current problems associated with the countrywide implementation of portable medical devices and discuss the ways to solve them.
Advantages of eHealth
On the one hand, the use of data from monitoring devices as the way to monitor his or her vital factors can be an effective expense undercut. In fact, this idea was mentioned by the nation’s Affordable Care Act as “the service delivery models which can reduce program expenditures under the applicable titles while preserving or enhancing the quality of care furnished to individuals under such titles (2016).” Remote recording devices will partially reduce the necessity in analysis attendance. In other words, if some information about the patient has already been collected, then there is no need to ask him or her to perform those tests. The new technology may curtail the spending on some of the preliminary analysis and therefore, significantly reduce the cost of the insurance.
The settlement of mobile apps will enable doctor productivity. It is an incredible time-saver for both patients and physicians. The first one does not have to go back and forth to take the results and meet with the doctor- with the changes it will be possible online. The latter one always has access to patient’s medical card. Furthermore, the owners of eHealth are about to create the solid system which will give researchers the permission to accession to any source of data. Therefore, the novelties can furnish a full freedom of information, which will simplify both doctor’s and patient’s life.
In addition, fitness trackers could lower the level of morbidity among the dwellers. One could imagine that a doctor can keep track and analyze all changes in patient’s body through monitor without any effort on the part of a patient. Dr. Eric Topol, one of the advocates of remote examining, vouches that the approach help to make the job easier (Topol, 2016). A doctor receives results and thus, can detect illness, if there is one, in the first stages. Finally, Topol and his colleagues have an insight on patient’s condition and cut expenditures on inefficient procedures.
Disadvantages of eHealth
On the other hand, even though portable devices will be a new level in technological progress, there are still some insights that should be improved before its universal launching. According to recent studies, the accuracy of the devices people use for heart rate and calories burned measuring accounts for 80% or even less. The researchers immediately concluded that wearable devices cannot be applied as a tool for measuring people’s health. Moreover, health workers emphasized that eHealth devices lacked clinical viability and asked for further improvements.
There is a financial incentive that interferes with remote trackers implementation. Even though eHealth is intended to contract the expenditures connected with medical service, the price for its launching (equipment, training, production and technical facilities) will amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Australia was obliged to pay 1.6 billion dollars for the implementation of the new system. Regional and remote areas of the country multiplied the amount of money that should be spent, as the government had to provide some financial support to make the eHealth adoption smooth. In addition, there appeared several software platforms. Such outcome was caused by the diverse demand from the professionals’ and consumers’ side. Therefore, these programs asked for additional aid to boast all the multitude of frameworks. International nomenclature also was a challenge to face. The Australian government had to find the way to transfer all domestic data to the foreign semantic (Schweitzer & Synowiec, 2012). Thus, the launching of a home monitoring system can be quite a money-consuming affair, and at preliminary stages, the U.S. Administration should consider all the outcomes that have already happened to prevent tremendous investment loss.
The successful adoption of eHealth will be possible in the case if a government can provide the data with proper confidentiality policy. The trustful relationship between patient and vendors who offer this service is the only chance for this program to survive. Currently, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has the governance over the privacy regulations. HIPAA protects identifiable information which was confinded by “covered entities” online. HIPAA manages communication between providers and stands for proper security (Schwamm et al., 2016). Nonetheless, people are concerned that federal privacy law will not cover the substantially growing cluster of data created by eHealth apps and devices. If one steps outside the medical topic, he or she will recall that Google, Facebook, Amazon has already been charged for the customer private information usage. The advocates of the privacy scolded the sites for their disclosure of information which they used for advertisement mail out. Using health information may even aggravate the situation.
Skills and Knowledge
Developing the assignment, I had an opportunity to involve those skills that are inherent to the field of informatics. One of them was scanning which let me instantaneously find the information I needed in a gruesome article. As far as I am concerned, the work perfectly demonstrates my ability to critical thinking and complex problem-solving in the way I develop the essay. The argumentation that was written comprises of my knowledge medicine, administration, law, and economics.
Conclusion
Finally, it is clear that the technology itself can be beneficial regarding both morbidity level and financial welfare. As in the case with any innovation, eHealth devices and apps will certainly challenge the existing health care system. The vendors of the software must work in correspondence with requirements that HIPAA will impose on them. One of the most serious aspects that should be decided is the role and influence of the eHealth in a legal system. Before the ubiquitous implementation of the online programming, it will be useful to monitor the quality of the devices and certify its accurateness. Moreover, for a successful realization of the project, it will be reasonable to build up an infrastructural system and the ways to transmit medical data to the other countries.
References
Schwamm, L. H., Chumbler, N., Brown, E., Fonarow, G. C., Berube, D., Nystrom, K…. & Lacktman, N. (2016). Recommendations for the implementation of telehealth in cardiovascular and stroke care: A policy statement from the American heart association. Circulation. 135(7), 24-44. doi:10.1161
Schweitzer, J., & Synowiec, C. (2012). The economics of eHealth and mHealth. Journal of health communication, 17(1), 73-81.
Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress. (2016). Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Dec. 22, 2016. Washington, DC.
Topol, E. (2016). The patient will see you now: the future of medicine is in your hands. New York, NY: Basic Books.