Comparative Analysis of Telehealth Services for both Providers and Patients

Abstract

This capstone project presents a comparative analysis of telehealth access to healthcare to the utilization of rural hospitals. The patient demand on access to care, affordability, and quality of healthcare management is a critical component to healthcare reform in America. As the healthcare industry is faced with many policy implications and the changing of legislation, it is imperative to address the issue of access and quality to care. Utilizing telehealth medicine to bridge the gap for health disparities to be an effective method for healthcare organizations to implement in a manner that improves quality and value. Exploring mixed-method studies, and meta-analysis studies revolving around telehealth medicine of secondary qualitative and quantitative data is retrieved where it is then compared to local data in the form of a pilot study. The hypothesis being tested in this project is that healthcare organizations do not show patient satisfaction, reduced spending leading to decreased prevention, performance, and more patient wait time/less provider break time with telehealth services. Findings of this project indicate that utilization of telehealth medicine does improve patient access, time saving, cost-efficiency, and creating value to the healthcare delivery without impairing quality. Both pilot study and secondary data indicates in this research project that there is enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis; therefore, key policy implications must be enacted to regulate access, cost, and quality to implement a framework moving forward. Limitations of this project include limited generalizability, small sample size, selection bias, short study duration, technology access, and digital divide. Organizations should implement/expand telehealth medicine to rural healthcare sustainability, and make telehealth a permanent component of healthcare delivery in which policymakers enact legislation to maintain high standards of care and prevent misuse. Long-term success of telehealth will depend on sustainable, equitable, and well regulated policy frameworks.