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he pressures on the health workforce have a profound impact on the quality of care. The solution to health workforce issues is a global concern and governments and health systems around the world are seeking solutions to the problems of worker shortages and access to health services. Education and training of more doctors, nurses, and other health professionals require long-term policy changes, funding, and infrastructure development. Telehealth has been identified as an alternative solution to address some of these critical issues and this chapter outlines the potential of telehealth to address some challenges facing the health workforce. The discussion will provide evidence for feasible and effective adoption of telehealth solutions.
The rapidly growing aged population is challenging conventional methods of care provision. Global ageing, combined with other challenges, has compelled health systems to explore new methods for providing health care. Telenursing, providing nursing care at a distance using new technologies, is identified as one alternative. The lack of evidence for the effectiveness of telenursing in aged care is a drawback for its wider use. The aim of this chapter is to review the evidence of randomised controlled trials (RCT) in geriatric telenursing practices. We performed a systematic literature review using the Ovid Medline and Pubmed databases on telenursing. A total of 62 articles were retrieved and 18 studies were selected for comprehensive analysis. The review found that the RCTs were conducted in different areas of geriatric telenursing and various information and communication technologies (ICT) were used in the interventions. Although robust evidence, based on RCTs in aged care telenursing is yet to emerge, the majority of current studies suggest that telenursing is an effective tool.
The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in health/medical practices is widely known as e-Health. Evidence suggests that the use of e-Health offers new opportunities for effective clinical practices, time and cost savings for patients, doctors and health services. However, the lack of appropriate education and training opportunities is considered to be a main barrier to provide necessary knowledge and skills in e-Health. Practice of e-Health demands rethink of the existing frames of reference and the adoption of new frames of reference in health and medical practice. Resistance to such change is an obvious challenge. Carefully designed education programs are the key to address this challenge. This chapter shares the experience of adopting key tenets of transformative learning theory in designing, developing and delivering e-Health teaching at the University of Queensland Centre for Online Health in Australia.
