The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment
The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2012-12-20

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0309262011

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In 1996, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report Telemedicine: A Guide to Assessing Telecommunications for Health Care. In that report, the IOM Committee on Evaluating Clinical Applications of Telemedicine found telemedicine is similar in most respects to other technologies for which better evidence of effectiveness is also being demanded. Telemedicine, however, has some special characteristics-shared with information technologies generally-that warrant particular notice from evaluators and decision makers. Since that time, attention to telehealth has continued to grow in both the public and private sectors. Peer-reviewed journals and professional societies are devoted to telehealth, the federal government provides grant funding to promote the use of telehealth, and the private technology industry continues to develop new applications for telehealth. However, barriers remain to the use of telehealth modalities, including issues related to reimbursement, licensure, workforce, and costs. Also, some areas of telehealth have developed a stronger evidence base than others. The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) sponsored the IOM in holding a workshop in Washington, DC, on August 8-9 2012, to examine how the use of telehealth technology can fit into the U.S. health care system. HRSA asked the IOM to focus on the potential for telehealth to serve geographically isolated individuals and extend the reach of scarce resources while also emphasizing the quality and value in the delivery of health care services. This workshop summary discusses the evolution of telehealth since 1996, including the increasing role of the private sector, policies that have promoted or delayed the use of telehealth, and consumer acceptance of telehealth. The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment: Workshop Summary discusses the current evidence base for telehealth, including available data and gaps in data; discuss how technological developments, including mobile telehealth, electronic intensive care units, remote monitoring, social networking, and wearable devices, in conjunction with the push for electronic health records, is changing the delivery of health care in rural and urban environments. This report also summarizes actions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can undertake to further the use of telehealth to improve health care outcomes while controlling costs in the current health care environment.

HRSA Directory
HRSA Directory

Author: United States. Health Resources and Services Administration

Publisher:

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 30

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ethical Issues in Rural Health Care
Ethical Issues in Rural Health Care

Author: Craig M. Klugman

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2013-01-02

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1421411504

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Klugman and Dalinis initiate a much-needed conversation about the ethical and policy concerns facing health care providers in the rural United States. This volume initiates a much-needed conversation about the ethical and policy concerns facing health care providers in the rural United States. Although 21 percent of the population lives in rural areas, only 11 percent of physicians practice there. What challenges do health care workers face in remote locations? What are the differences between rural and urban health care practices? What particular ethical issues arise in treating residents of small communities? Craig M. Klugman and Pamela M. Dalinis gather philosophers, lawyers, physicians, nurses, and researchers to discuss these and other questions, offering a multidisciplinary overview of rural health care in the United States. Rural practitioners often practice within small, tight-knit communities, socializing with their patients outside the examination room. The residents are more likely to have limited finances and to lack health insurance. Physicians may have insufficient resources to treat their patients, who often have to travel great distances to see a doctor. The first part of the book analyzes the differences between rural and urban cultures and discusses the difficulties in treating patients in rural settings. The second part features the personal narratives of rural health care providers, who share their experiences and insights. The last part introduces unique ethical challenges facing rural health care providers and proposes innovative solutions to those problems. This volume is a useful resource for bioethicists, members of rural bioethics committees and networks, policy makers, teachers of health care providers, and rural practitioners themselves.

Rural Health in the United States
Rural Health in the United States

Author: Thomas C. Ricketts

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1999-10-07

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0199759723

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Many of the 61 million people who live in rural America have limited access to health care. Almost a quarter of the nation's population lives in rural places yet only an eighth of our doctors work there. Sponsored by the U.S. Office of Rural Health Policy, this unique book provides the facts about this imbalance and interprets them in the context of government programs that promote the placement of doctors and the operation of hospitals in rural places while paying them less to treat Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. The authors' comprehensive analysis of rural health care delivery shows where there are differences in rates of death and disease between rural areas using maps, graphs, and plain-English descriptions. The book provides a thorough look at health care in rural America, giving a snapshot of how doctors, hospitals, and technology are unevenly distributed outside the nation's metropolitan areas.

Quality Through Collaboration
Quality Through Collaboration

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2005-04-24

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0309094399

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Building on the innovative Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm, Quality Through Collaboration: The Future of Rural Health offers a strategy to address the quality challenges in rural communities. Rural America is a vital, diverse component of the American community, representing nearly 20% of the population of the United States. Rural communities are heterogeneous and differ in population density, remoteness from urban areas, and the cultural norms of the regions of which they are a part. As a result, rural communities range in their demographics and environmental, economic, and social characteristics. These differences influence the magnitude and types of health problems these communities face. Quality Through Collaboration: The Future of Rural Health assesses the quality of health care in rural areas and provides a framework for core set of services and essential infrastructure to deliver those services to rural communities. The book recommends: Adopting an integrated approach to addressing both personal and population health needs Establishing a stronger health care quality improvement support structure to assist rural health systems and professionals Enhancing the human resource capacity of health care professionals in rural communities and expanding the preparedness of rural residents to actively engage in improving their health and health care Assuring that rural health care systems are financially stable Investing in an information and communications technology infrastructure It is critical that existing and new resources be deployed strategically, recognizing the need to improve both the quality of individual-level care and the health of rural communities and populations.

Rural Health Care
Rural Health Care

Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance. Subcommittee on Medicare and Long-Term Care

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

America's Health Care Safety Net
America's Health Care Safety Net

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2000-09-04

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 030906497X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

America's Health Care Safety Net explains how competition and cost issues in today's health care marketplace are posing major challenges to continued access to care for America's poor and uninsured. At a time when policymakers and providers are urgently seeking guidance, the committee recommends concrete strategies for maintaining the viability of the safety netâ€"with innovative approaches to building public attention, developing better tools for tracking the problem, and designing effective interventions. This book examines the health care safety net from the perspectives of key providers and the populations they serve, including: Components of the safety netâ€"public hospitals, community clinics, local health departments, and federal and state programs. Mounting pressures on the systemâ€"rising numbers of uninsured patients, decline in Medicaid eligibility due to welfare reform, increasing health care access barriers for minority and immigrant populations, and more. Specific consequences for providers and their patients from the competitive, managed care environmentâ€"detailing the evolution and impact of Medicaid managed care. Key issues highlighted in four populationsâ€"children with special needs, people with serious mental illness, people with HIV/AIDS, and the homeless.

Communities in Action
Communities in Action

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0309452961

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.