The equipment was set up as planned. Nursing home residents who are too frail to travel and wait long hours in an outpatient department sit in front of a computer in the nursing home. But hospital doctors’ schedules are rather unpredictable, so residents and nurses still have to wait.
After a long wait, residents need to go to the bathroom, or are too tired or in too much pain to remain seated, so they ask to go back to bed. Or the nurse has to answer an urgent phone inquiry, or it’s time to give out meals or medications, and so on and so forth. In the end, the resident or the nurse is not there when the doctor finally shows up at the other end of the telecommunications set-up.
Now, it’s the doctor’s turn to wait and, of course, his or her schedule is too filled to wait for long, and residents are usually not fast enough to connect with a doctor who is always on the go. That’s why this mode of telemedicine doesn’t work.
With smartphones, all these nightmares will disappear. Apps allow residents and others to connect immediately with doctors, and vice versa. Problems associated with lack of portability of telecommunications equipment is no longer a deterrent to the timely consultation needed by seniors, no matter where they are.
Although I am not personally a fan of smartphones, I applaud the advance of technology and all those who put so much effort into popularizing their use.
For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.
