A Telehealth Technology Model for Information Science in Rural Settings

Introduction

Examined is the application of telehealth technology in a rural community clinical and educational system. Telehealth is viewed as the removal of time and distance barriers in the provision of health care and patient education to underserved populations (Nickelson 1996). Presented is a clinical consultation model of health care for underserved populations and where professional consultation with a team of professionals may benefit rural educational systems and their students. Offered are specific applications within a broad spectrum of services utilizing telehealth technology. Finally, shifts in administrative paradigms, clinical models, and educational information technology for healthcare services through telehealth technology are explored. Educational technology has provided society with new applications for clinical and educational consultation that enhance the quality of services offered to rural school systems through telehealth (National Advisory Committee on Rural Health, 2004). Whitten, Cook, Shaw et al. (1998), Sargent (1999), Miller & Miller (1999)Shaw, Goodwin, Whitten, & Doolittle (1999) and Whitten & Cook (1999) Miller, Miller, Sprang, & Kraus (2003), Sammons & DeLeon (2004), Miller, DeLeon, P., Morgan, Penk, Magaletta, (2006) have all addressed telehealth service application for rural school districts, their students and families. Through this medium of service delivery, children and adults in need of specialized care that might not be readily available to them can receive the specialty consultation of experts using telehealth technology. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a consultation model for health related delivery services for children and adults in rural and underserved geographical areas.

Telehealth, or the use of telecommunication technology to provide access to health assessment, diagnosis, intervention, consultation, supervision, education, and information across distance, has become a well recognized vehicle for delivering services and disseminating information to a variety of consumer populations as well as professionals and practitioners (Nickelson, 1998; Miller & Hutchins 2008)). Given its ability to transcend many of the economic, cultural, and geographic barriers that often prohibit or restrict the provision of health care, the use of telehealth has begun to reshape traditional systems of care. Moreover, due to its unique capacity to negate many of the traditional obstacles in service delivery, telehealth is often a desirable option for the provision of health care to rural, confined, underserved and isolated groups (Miller & Holcomb 2007).

As a result, a large proportion of telehealth studies have focused on evaluating the effectiveness of telecommunications technology in delivering health services to rural and specialty populations (Wood, 2000). Numerous studies suggest that telehealth applications can be utilized to deliver health care services that are accessible to rural or underserved populations that the quality of care delivered via telehealth is similar to or surpasses that of face-to-face services (Bischoff, Hollist, Smith, & Frank, 2004; Miller, Miller, Kraus, & Sprang, 2003; Norman, 2006) and that both consumers and providers are satisfied with services rendered via telehealth