Essay on Challenges faced by Telehealth Adoption and few Considerable Solutions

    With the increasing revolution of technology, the world has started to get the awareness of the benefits provided by Telehealth. The health systems around the world can increase their capacity and capability by using telehealth, as they can handle more patients, reduce healthcare costs, as well as, improve outcomes for the patients. When we look at these benefits, it looks obvious for health systems to quickly adopt it, but it is strange that the adoption rate of telehealth has not been so encouraging. There are a variety of challenges to adopting telehealth as a proper health system and these challenges are the biggest hindrance in its adoption. The initial cost of setting up telehealth centers with the latest technology can be expensive, especially when there is a lack of digital infrastructure. It is time to look at some major challenges to see what kind of solutions can be found accordingly.

ü  The first primary challenge in the adoption of telehealth is limited access and resources to use the internet. The health facilities can’t be sure that all of their potential patients will have access to the internet and devices to get involved in telehealth. The people living in remote and rural areas don’t have access to the internet as people living in urban areas tend to have. In this situation, the solution is to increase access to the internet for the majority of the population. The role of government and telecommunication companies is critical in this regard.

ü  The other primary issue is the lack of digital literacy. Digital literacy means the ability of people to use a variety of digital devices such as tablets, smartphones, and computers. If a patient is not aware of effectively using and handling these digital devices, then telehealth cannot get its maximum proficiency. Mostly, the problem is with elderly patients as they have not used these technologies for a major portion of their lives so it is hard to convince and train them. The best solution for this problem is that caregivers should talk more with their patients on this, and explain the benefits of using telehealth as a healthcare facility.

ü  The other biggest challenge in this regard is the lack of digital infrastructure. If there would be no proper digital infrastructure, then it is impossible to implement telehealth as a caregiving system. The healthcare facilities, as well as, patients’ facilities should have the right technology and devices to get the fruits of telehealth. Moreover, the telehealth staff should also have an understanding of using digital devices along with computer programs to deal with patients to store and retrieve their information.

            These are some of the major challenges, and stakeholders should understand the criticality of these challenges. Looking at the benefits provided by telehealth systems, the government should encourage telehealth providers by facilitating them in terms of softening the rules and regulations so that caregivers can easily get licensed to provide telehealth services.