How Teletrauma Has Affected the Lives of People - Essay Example

College Due to the rising number of fatalities and trauma incidences, there is urgent need for technological advances that can be used to handle trauma emergencies. Since trauma patients require the fastest medical attention, the life of the patient is always in danger, especially for those located away from hospitals. To curb this, technology has gone a step further to help patients who cannot get urgent medical attention do so in the nearest time possible. This paper is an in-depth look at how teletrauma has affected the lives of people, some of its advantages and disadvantages alike. The legal and political considerations are also looked into, as well as the economic viability. With lots of benefit and disadvantages at the same time, the paper tries to look at the most logical and best way to deal with teletrauma and how to ensure that it is effectively used. A list of articles randomly selected from the internet has been used to come up with the arguments behind this paper. These sources have been selected based on their relevance to the topic of discussion which revolves around teletrauma. With its proper use, teletrauma can perform wonders, as has been seen before. More studies are still aimed at bringing this new technology a step further. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of teletrauma and how can we improve it to be more efficient? These are the main questions examined and answered in this essay. Telehealth is the latest approach to approach to medical emergency. In this type of medical approach, telecommunication is used to treat patients who may be miles away and in need of urgent medical attention. Teletrauma is one of the major braches of telehealth. It is estimated that close to two million people died of simple trauma each year, something the does not require so much expertise to perform first aid rather one can easily be saved from the death. Due to the distances that many trauma cases have to the hospital, most end up dying before they reach the health centers. The use of telecommunication to administer medical care to the patients has been of great help here. Patients who are miles away from the hospital can have their medication delivered to them through instructions that are miles away. All the doctor has to do is to email the person close to the victim with all the necessary instructions that are needed to get the person back to their feet. Once this is done, the patient can receive the first aid and later be transported to the hospital. Despite the many advantages that this application has brought to the medical industry, there are still a lot of challenges that this kind of medication faces that leads to its many drawbacks (Gordon, 1998). Legal considerations are also in place for this medical approach to treatment. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of teletrauma and how can we improve it to be more efficient? Advantages Teletrauma has the key benefit of being able to save the patient from death that can be easily prevented. With medical instructions on how to handle the patient, the person close to the patient is able to assist the trauma patient at the time of need without having to transport him/her to the hospital thereby minimizing chances of death due to quick response. This method of treatment is also cost effective and can be of help to those who cannot afford medical treatment in the soonest time possible that they need. This application is also able to teach people basic medical practices that they can use in the future. For example, the person taking care of the trauma patient can easily save another person incase such an occurrence take place again. This method is therefore very fast and can work miracles if followed well. It does not require qualified medical personnel, meaning that anyone who is good at following instructions is able to perform it. It therefore means that one specialized doctor can be able to give out information that can save a lot of people at the same time. Teletrauma is also easily available and anyone can get access to it. This makes it very efficient in times of trauma emergencies especially to those who are located in remote places. Disadvantages The very grounds used to justify the advantages of this method define the disadvantages. First of all, this method can lead to the case getting even worse than it was due to the person not following the instructions well. In this case, the patient can end up dying or getting worse when they could be saved with proper instructions. The people performing this operation are not qualified therefore minimizing the chances of success of such an operation. Lack of qualified personnel is therefore a major challenge for the application since they cannot be able to get there in time. Trauma treatment requires a lot of equipments that are modern, however with the urgency of the situation and the location of most patients during the incident, most trauma patients never have access to special medical equipments that can be used in their treatment, this lead to the use of improvised tools that are not safe for the patient and which can cause more harm. Some instructions may be general and may not be applicable in some scenarios. The internet is also full of scams, there are people who may pose as qualified doctors and give instructions that may later pose as risk to the patient when used. This may lead to more problems since the person performing this operation may not be able to recognize the actual problem of the patient. It is therefore advised that they note all the signs down and ask the doctor before they can move on. In general, the chances of survival of the patient are highly minimized by the use of unqualified personnel. The patients are also put at risk since they are handled by people who are not qualified at all (Thoroddsen, 2010). Financial aspects Setting up a teletrauma application is the major financial challenge. Maintaining it is also a major challenge since most of the people who use it do not pay for the service. It therefore needs a lot of sponsorship to do this. During the setting of the application, most organizations come in to help in the funding of the building process and to facilitate its final buildup. A lot of money is needed for creating the website that is linked to a lot of databases that contains medical information. After it has been made, there needs to be a doctor who gives instructions in a professional manner. Most of the doctors are paid by the well-wishers and organizations that fund the whole project. They have to make sure that the instructions that they are giving out are valid for that particular situation and that the patient’s life is not put at high risk by the person performing the emergency aid. Using the application is very cheap for the patients. Without any transport cost, sometimes the patients can be able to get the treatment without having to pay anything apart from the internet costs. It therefore makes the sale of the application affordable to most people therefore promoting better healthcare. However it is advisable that the trauma patients seek professional medical attention soon after this. In some cases, government organizations come in to finance the buildup as well as the maintenance of the whole application so as to reduce death chances of most trauma cases. Security concerns Just like any other internet service, teletrauma is also faced by a lot of security concerns. To start with, there are lots of scam doctors creating fake websites to attract and con people of their money. These sites have valid certificates and in most cases it makes it easy to convince the patients into their application. The problem with these websites is that most of the information they get are not authentic rather unprofessional ideas that is drafted to look professional. There are also cases where hackers hack into the system to try and steal information’s that they can sell to other websites. This is however not a common occurrence but such cases have been reported. The use of data encryption has however helped in the safe storage of such information and to ensure that only the right personnel get access to the required information. In order to protect patient information from such fraudsters, domain authentication is also used to ensure security. Before one can access the site, they have to login and give some important information that is used to identify them. To prevent these security measures, the health organizations is doing a lot to ensure that each teletrauma service has a valid certificate so that those without can be closed down. Having a certification also entails a lot of things including a check at the type of services offered and in they are valid (Hebda, 2009). Legal considerations There are a lot of legal issues that affect Teletrauma. First of all is the law of certification. For any company to be registered to offer this kind of service there has to be sufficient evidence to support that the information given to the patient will be sufficient enough to save his life. If there is no sufficient evidence to prove this, then the certification cannot be given. It therefore makes it hard for scam doctors to operate due to the cost that they have to pay when caught. Teletrauma is also guided by the medical society of the US. This means that all activities that take place, must be to the standard of the board. Any violation of these rules such as the giving of wrong information and the willing use of patient information for other purposes is highly prohibited by the board. Other legal issues affecting this telehealth application are government policies. It is an obligation that every health provision centre be fully registered with the government of the US (Aquilino, 2000). With this registration, they have to fully agree with the policies that defines their actions and have to take responsibility for any human harm caused by their actions. There are a lot of rules that define how teletrauma should function with last instruction having to emphasize that despite the patient condition, they have to reach the hospital after this type of service has been performed on them. If this information is in anyway omitted then the law is also Brocken. References Aquilino, M., & Keenan, G. (2000). Having our say: nursing's standardized nomenclatures. American Journal of Nursing, 100(7), 33-38. Retrieved from CINAHL Plus with Full Text database. Gordon, M. (1998). Nursing nomenclature and classification system development. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, no pagination. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/ OJIN/TableofContents/Vol31998/No2Sept1998/NomenclatureandClassification.aspx Hebda T. & Czar, P. (2009). Handbook of informatics for nurses & healthcare professionals (4thed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Thoroddsen, A., Ehnfors, M., & Ehrenberg, A. (2010). Nursing specialty knowledge as expressed by standardized nursing languages. International Journal of Nursing Terminologies & Classifications, 21(2), 69-79. doi:10.1111/j.1744-618X.2010.01148.x. http://ezproxy.sjcme.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=t rue&db=rzh&AN=2010629512&site=ehost-live Read More