Telehealth is a new radical innovation within the healthcare sector in recent years especially among the older population and those with chronic conditions. This transformation is vital to a good number of nursing practitioners and students. Whether you require my nursing essay or you require someone to write my nursing essay for me , the article gives a good, current, and well-researched overview of the role of telehealth in geriatric nursing and in chronic disease nursing.
What is Telehealth and Why is it Relevant When Caring About Older Adults and Patients With Chronic Diseases
Telehealth (also known as telemedicine) refers to a system of health care delivery using digital communication systems (such as video, audio, messaging applications, and mobile health applications, remote monitoring devices, and wearables). Telehealth can provide limited advantages to geriatric and chronic disease nursing and it can revolutionize patient care.
- The usual barriers to older adults and people with chronic conditions are mobility limitations, frequent hospital visits and access to specialists. Telehealth will solve these problems since it will enable it.
- On-demand health facilities – to ensure that patients do not have to travel long distances in order to access the medical practitioners but get their services online.
- This would then be followed by regular and adaptive follow up visits especially where it involves chronic illness management where regular follow ups or consultations may be a prerequisite.
- Home-based monitoring using devices- blood-pressure monitors, glucose levels, pulse oximeter, wearable heart monitors or any other remote patient monitoring (RPM)-capable device that sends vital signs and health data directly to the care provider.
This remote care modification is not merely convenient, but telehealth is becoming indispensable to the process of health care by many patients who are older or living with chronic conditions.
Recent Views and Revisions Pertaining to Telehealth Application in Nursing of Geriatrics and Chronic Diseases
Wide Use and Uptake Among The Older Adults
Telehealth is being extensively applied in many care settings – hospitals, long-term care homes, outpatient clinics, home-based care, and community or assisted-living facilities. Healthcare specialists in geriatrics and primacy care also actively apply telehealth and support a wide range of services: primary care check-ups, mental and behavioral health, medication-check, chronic disease visit, follow-up, etc.
It is said that telehealth improves the communication between the stakeholders, the longitudinal follow-up of the face-to-face interactions, and adherence to the treatment process, as well as access to care in patients living long distances apart as far as the medical facilities are considered.
Fulfillment of Patients and Economy
Recent research of older adults (especially of the aging population of 65 and above) is very promising. As other reports have indicated, the intervention of telehealth in geriatric care has been associated with radical reduction in healthcare spending – in other researches as much as an enormous saving per encounter of care. In low-income or resource-constrained settings, it is especially the case with savings. Patient satisfaction with such studies is generally high and at times comparable or even greater than the conventional care provided by face to face interaction with the patients particularly the older ones who are more comfortable with the convenience and the absence of travel burden in their life.
However, not all older adults are going to be covered by these benefits. The elderly patients (80 years and above) may exhibit problems in the use of technology, digital literacy, or usability, and this aspect may limit their opportunities to achieve maximum benefit of the telehealth interventions.
Higher Quality Health and Chronic Disease Management
Such measures as telehealth and remote monitoring have also been reported to improve self-management, earlier detection of issues or complications, and hospitalization or emergency services in individuals with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, blood pressure, heart disease, chronic kidney disease, or lung disease (Gillespy et al., 2019).
As an example, wearable technology remote care coordination tools, glucose meters, blood pressure and health coaching have demonstrated that systolic blood pressure changes decrease significantly in a few months in hypertensive patients. The patients with diabetes under the assistance of telehealth have the higher level of glycemic control, the increased treatment adherence, and the increased follow-up frequency.
Another way that telehealth helps in self-management of chronic diseases is due to education, medication adherence, lifestyle, and timely follow-ups which also contributes to the control of complications and improved health outcomes in the long term.
Better Palliative and Geriatric Care
Telehealth is currently being applied in geriatrics not only in the treatment of chronic conditions. The case of older adults with complex medical background or low mobility may allow remote appointments and examinations to provide the specialist expertise that real-life geriatric care may be unable to provide or may be limited.
Palliative care of older adults and those with advanced or ongoing conditions may be implemented through telehealth since it has the capacity to ensure continuity of care, frequent check-ins, ongoing monitoring of symptoms, and ensure that caregivers are in close contact with the patient even when they find it difficult to meet due to distance or mobility problems. This means that the patients will be given a chance to enjoy the care and the due treatment at the comfort of their own home- and this can help reduce the patients hospitalization, improve the quality of life and offload the caregiver and the patient from the burden.
The Nurses and Telehealth: The Responsibilities that are Changing
Telehealth is not a replacement for nurses – it expands their scope and recreates it. New opportunities and responsibility are granted to nurses, professionals and students by this change. The significant nurse functions in a telehealth based model are:
- Remote triage and teleconsultation: Nurses can remotely examine and decide whether a patient needs care and physician or specialists face-to-face respectively. It comes especially in handy with aged people or with permanent patients when they are to check-in regularly.
- Remote monitoring of patients (blood pressure, glucose, oxygen saturation and heart rate) will be able to be managed by Chronic disease management and follow-up Nurses, the trends can be understood, care plan can be altered, the patients will be reminded of the medications they should take or lifestyle changes, and the patients should receive the attention 24/7.
- Patient support and education: Nurses can engage in phone calls, video calls, or mobile health applications to train patients and their caretakers on how to manage the disease, take medication regularly, eat, exercise, monitor themselves and prevent disease. This education is vital to chronic illness and geriatrics since self-management is an imperative provision.
- Care coordination/ interdisciplinary collaboration: Telehealth supports the more readily collaboration of healthcare providers (nurses, physicians, specialists, caregivers) regardless of the geographical distance to improve continuity of care, duplication and a holistic approach.
- Palliative and long-term care: The nurses will assist with the old patients who need long-term or end of life; the nurses can provide regular telecommuting, symptom assessment, psychosocial support, and care education that can contribute to enhancing the comfort, dignity, and quality of life of the patients.
Telecommunication, remote monitoring, digital literacy education, communication with patients through digital mediums and care coordination on the digital platform are other abilities required of nurses due to the changing roles.
Telehealth Problems and Issues in Geriatric and Chronic Disease Nursing Care
The benefits of telehealth are numerous, and so are the drawbacks. It must be stated that there are some challenges and concerns that ought to be noticed and solved, especially in the field of geriatric and chronic care.
Online UX and Culture of Digital Literacy
Elderly people are not comfortable calling on digital technologies and do not even know their existence. The use of telehealth may be complicated in patients older than 80 due to poor vision and their hearing issue, lack of dexterity, cognitive impairment, or even of familiarity with smartphones, tablets, or computers. This barrier may become a hindrance to adoption and effectiveness and therefore, unless well-supported, trained, or age-friendly designed.
Disparity of Access and Structural Infrastructure Deficiency
The internet connection in rural or other low-income or resource-starved locations can be unstable or even unavailable. There may be no devices (smartphone, tablets, remote monitoring tools) or tools that patients need to charge, connect, and maintain, either. The kind of technology that can contribute to the issue of healthcare disparities is telehealth, because the groups most prone to elderly or chronically ill patients cannot access telehealth.
Clinical Restrictions and Quality Issues
Some aspects of care including physical checkups, emergency care, diagnostic tests and others cannot have their full replacement by virtual visits. Loss of signs, physical examination, and less rapport and trust-building might be a matter of concern regarding chronic and complex cases. Some patients and care partners or clinicians observe that telehealth is not as personal an experience, and that important nonverbal communication is losing its air.
Moreover not all types of telehealth intervention are equally effective. The success of the remote monitoring process can be predetermined by the quality of the telehealth system, as well as the level of comfort of patients with technology, nature of the disease, availability or unavailability of caregivers or loved ones to facilitate remote monitoring or teleconsultation process.
Request of Hybrid Care Model and Inclusive Design
Having a plethora of needs of older individuals, telehealth services should be made easy to use: easy interfaces, large font/texts, comprehensible audio/video, possibly caregiver services and efficient technical support.
A hybrid model can be a perfect one in the case of many patients since it is associated with remote visits and occasional visits. This ensures that the areas of treatment it is needed to investigate on the body to offer hands-on treatment or human contact are not disregarded but telehealth convenience and access may be utilized to monitor, follow-up, and educate.
Furthermore, telehealth must remain sustainable, equitable and effective to the aging or chronically ill population, hence in resource constrained settings or underdeveloped countries, centers and policy-makers should invest in the infrastructures, training and other resources.
What It Means to Nursing Students Writing Essays
Assuming you are a nursing student, you are required to write an essay on telehealth and the role of telehealth in geriatric or chronic disease care, or get someone to do my nursing essay or have someone write my nursing essay. Some implications and suggestions on how to make your writing strong, comprehensive and current:
- Understanding telehealth is not a band-aid solution or a convenience tool, it is emerging as one of the pillars of contemporary nursing in old age and chronic care patients.
- Resort to real life evidence: give cost effectiveness statistics, patient satisfaction, and hospitalization or complication reductions, and remote monitoring research.
- Talk about the opportunities and challenges: point out the digital literacy, inequality in access, usability, limit in clinical services, equity issue, and hybrid care models.
- Highlight the changing role of nurses: nurses are not only in bedside care anymore, but are now remote care coordinators, educators, chronic disease managers, teletriage providers and patient advocates – new skills and competency may be needed.
- Think about the future: we can integrate wearables, implement remote monitoring based on IoT, have AI-guided predictive analytics, create remote care models that can be scaled to underserved populations, and bring changes to the policies to achieve fair access to telehealth.
This balanced analysis will not only make the essay informative and evidence based, but also critically reflective and future facing.
Emerging Trends and the Future Role of Telehealth in Geriatric and Chronic Care
With the growth of technology, telehealth will probably be even more deeply incorporated into care delivery, particularly in older adults and chronic disease patients. A number of trends indicate that telehealth will be playing a more central role in the future:
- Smartwatches and remote monitoring via the Internet of Things Wearables to monitor vital signs (heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, ECG, activity levels) and environmental sensors in the house can send information to healthcare providers in real time. It would enable us to understand the deterioration in time, preventive measures, and long-term monitoring, which will minimize the threat of acute conditions, such as heart attacks or diabetic complications.
- Digital care coordination models serving underserved and rural communities – By integrating teleconsultations, remote monitoring, and community health assistance interventions (e.g. home health workers, community nurses), telehealth can eliminate the gaps in areas where the access to specialists is low. This model can be useful particularly in developing nations or low-resource settings.
- Models of hybrid care that incorporate telehealth and in-person care Hybrid models Hybrid models appear to be a way to balance the convenience of remote medical care with the requirements of hands-on examinations or interventions. This combined model can present the best of both worlds to many geriatric or chronically ill patients, who not only need high-quality and regular medical care but also need accessibility.
- Nurse and caregiver training, capacity building – With the increased prevalence of telehealth, telehealth competencies (remote assessment, digital communication skills, remote patient monitoring, data interpretation, patient education to self-management, platform cross-platform care coordination, working with caregivers or family members) are likely to be integrated into nursing curricula and continuing education.
- Policy, infrastructure, and equity measures — To achieve telehealth sustainability and equity, governments and healthcare systems can potentially incur expenses in accessible reliable internet connectivity, affordable devices, assistance programs to support caregivers, digital literacy programs in older adults,
Copyright Registration for creatives in Nigeria and ethical regulatory frameworks that provide privacy and data confidentiality and accessibility.
Concisely, geriatric and chronic disease nursing is likely to be heavily connected with the telehealth concept in the future not as a complementary tool but as one of the essential pillars of care delivery.
Conclusion
Telehealth is an impressive, and developing instrument of geriatric and chronic illness nursing. The data indicate that it has the potential to dramatically enhance health outcomes, enhance care access, decrease cost, and patient satisfaction – in particular, in older adults and people with chronic conditions. Telehealth does not merely represent a trend among nursing students who need to write essays or practitioners who are building their care models: telehealth is the future of care delivery.
Through a deliberate adoption of telehealth, fully understanding the advantages and disadvantages, nurses will be at the forefront of providing patients with high-quality and patient-centered care to older and chronically ill patients. This article can serve as a full base in case you intend to do my nursing essay or intend to have somebody write my nursing essay on the matter.