The Benefits of Telehealth Among Disadvantaged Communities

Author

• Anoosh Arshad

Date of Award

Fall 12-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Health Sciences

First Advisor

Monika Rasmus

Second Advisor

Emerald Dixon

Abstract

This study aims to understand how the widespread integration of telehealth services affects underserved communities, helping reduce health disparities in this group. Telemedicine includes various technologies and applications, supported by extensive research, public health, administrative, and patient-care benefits, to adapt to different fields. It involves clinical applications that focus on patient care, like making health decisions, and nonclinical applications like arranging board meetings. Telehealth is a health platform that uses communication technologies that allow doctors and patients to meet online through video and telephone visits, ensuring that patients receive high-quality care. It increases access to healthcare by removing geographical and other health challenges for patients with disabilities, low-income patients, and older patients in distant areas, ensuring that they receive high-quality care from the convenience of their homes. It can eliminate health inequities by providing accessible healthcare, better health outcomes, care coordination, and expanding the availability of these services to marginalized communities. There is a common belief that telehealth services allow disadvantaged communities to receive access to care by meeting virtually with their providers, but limited highbandwidth internet, lack of technology, and limited digital literacy prevent them from receiving quality care. I conducted my research by interviewing Dr. Karen Vigil from the Harris Health system about her experience using Telehealth in her daily practice and the obstacles her patients faced when using these services. Furthermore, I gathered articles through credible databases like JSTOR and the internet, which helped me identify the ones that presented strong arguments and consistent key points that were relevant to my topic. I found that telehealth changes depending on the different populations and on how technology works. Therefore, the younger population can use telehealth because they have digital literacy to utilize electronic devices whereas elderly ii individuals despise this platform due to lacking digital literacy and not having these devices. The telephone appointments for telehealth can be used by everyone unlike the video appointments since numerous individuals don’t own a phone with video features. Researchers should address digital solutions to make telehealth accessible among all patients despite their socioeconomic status and collaborate with policymakers to establish health programs that can improve the widespread implementation and usage of these services. They should perform surveys to identify any health challenges that patients encounter using telehealth and how the technology design should be tailored to fulfill specific patient needs. Keywords: telehealth, accessible, quality care, services, digital literacy, and technology

Recommended Citation

Arshad, Anoosh, "The Benefits of Telehealth Among Disadvantaged Communities" (2024). Honor’s College Freeman Research Journal. 42.
https://digitalscholarship.tsu.edu/frj/42