Hello Professor and Class,

My understanding of telehealth is that, the nurse calls the patient and provide them with triage, discuss results etc. “telehealth is the general term used to describe healthcare services delivered utilizing electronic media” (Hebda, 2019). Telehealth provides the opportunity for the patients to receive their results wherever they are. There was a time when I wanted to work as a telehealth nurse, because I was attracted to the fact that it seems like I could work from home. I was mostly concerned about the privacy of the patients. How can you be sure that you were talking to the correct person?

With telehealth, there must be certain protocols put in place to protect the privacy of the patients. The patients also need to know, that they can trust the information that is being provided to them. Professionalism must be maintained at all time (Association, 2005). Some ethical issues and privacy issues could be that, when providing information to a patient, you may unknowingly give information to someone else. When a patient is at his/her appointment with their doctor, there should be a code given to the patient that only the patient knows. The patient should be encouraged to not share this code, so that if a call is place to the patient, the healthcare worker should ask the patient for the code, so than tey can be comfortable that they are speaking to the right person. The Company that is employing for telehealth positions, but make sure that the person is qualified with the right credentials . I nurses are working in telehealth from home, they should make sure that the patient privacy is protected at all times. The computer should not be left open, since family members may get patient information.

References

Association, A. M. (2005). Ethical practice in telemedicine. Retrieved from AMA: https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/ethics/et…

Hebda, T. H. (2019). Handbook of informatics for nurses and healthcare professionals (6th ed). New York, NY: Pearson.