My friend has been a caregiver for her mother for sixteen years in my friend's home, including years of raising a young family. Today she wrote that her mother, at 91, struggled halfway through writing a birthday note to her other daughter who lives a gazillion miles away and was confused with layers of clothing. Though my friend has chosen not to share her journey with the world others take advantage of new technology whether by choice or by prescription. I remember having to convince my public policy professor to accept a research paper on telemedicine in the mid-90s. Today one can readily access Telemedicine and e-Health as a 10-issue journal and its bi-weekly sister newsletter. http://www.liebertpub.com/products/product.aspx?pid=54 According to its website, "Telemedicine and e-Health covers all aspects of clinical telemedicine practice, technical advances, medical connectivity, enabling technologies, education, health policy and regulation and biomedical and health services research dealing with clinical effectiveness, efficacy and safety of telemedicine and its effects on quality, cost and accessibility of care, medical records and transmission of same."
Elders, caregivers, physicians, staff , and vendors are comfortably assured when virtually assessing, treating and monitoring chronic illness. A video of an elder's home shared with an Aging in Place specialist can institute low cost modifications (compared to annual cost of assisted living). Social networks where families can establish virtual support keeps long-distance caregivers informed and aids in decision making.
http://www.igi-global.com/bookstore/chapter.aspx?TitleId=42678
Tell us about your caregiving experience incorporating gerotechnology devices, telemedicine, and/or social networking.
2 comments:
This is my first comment.
Electronic health records (EHR) are right at the center of telemedicine/telehealth. These e-records are the files in the file cabinets holding not only all the information about the care provided through telehealth mechanisms, but also information about the in-person visits. We can expect there to be system glitches and in fact, I have already experienced this with my mother. I am my mother’s caregiver. We decided to utilize one hospital/health system in order to simplify the coordination of her health needs. The hospital and health system she is part of is in the process of switching to a unified electronic health record system. However, two weeks ago she was requested to have some blood work taken. She happen to be seeing the cardiologist that day and we thought we would simply go downstairs to the lab and get the blood work while we were there. Much to our surprise there were twenty people waiting in the lab for their turn to be pricked. We thought no problem, we will just go across the street to the hospital lab. We asked the receptionist if that would be okay and if they would have mom’s records and she said yes. We went across the street and into the lab…only four other people were waiting. Not bad, we thought. When we went to check in mom’s records could not be found. They looked and looked, but there were no records and really no explanation. Needless to say, we were frustrated. After arriving back at the heart center once again we tried to find out why her records did not show up at the hospital, the same system. We finally found out that the lab that had the standing orders was yet another lab, still within the same system, but neither of the two we visited that day and guess what?... they were not yet tied into the EHR system. The point I am trying to make is that while the health systems are getting their EHR systems together we all need to be patient. Once that is done we can talk about telehealth and telemedicine. First steps…first.
Thank you for your valuable insights and the suggestions you sent to me on the End-of-Life Life Review Workbook. peace, tjm+
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