The Impact Of Telehealth In The Provision Of Primary Healthcare In New Zealand

Telehealth in the Health Care Industry

Discuss about the Importance and Opportunities in Primary Health Care Sector in New Zealand.

Technology has nowadays become an integral part of human life as a whole in the global scenario, having its influence in almost all the aspects and activities, both personal as well as professional and in many cases the same has facilitated in making human life easier, better and different human activities more convenient. Keeping this into consideration, the concerned research aims to study the impact of technology in health care aspects, specifically the phenomenon of telehealth and the implications it can have, if implemented in the health care service framework of New Zealand, especially in the aspects of provision of primary health care facilities for Maori, Samoa, tourists as well as immigrants and expats in the country.

As discussed above, like all other aspects, technology has played significant role in the health care industry also, one of its newest contribution being the concept of telehealth. As Schumacher (2015), asserts, the phenomenon of “Telehealth” is the provision of healthcare to the patients remotely with the help of telecommunication technology,  where the voice, data, images as well as personal and health related information of the patients can be transferred from the patient’s end to the care providing facility, which in turn can enable the provision of health care to the patient without any requirement of physical movement of either the patients or the health care providers from their places (Skiba, 2015).

Although telehealth is not a new innovation as such, however, in the recent years it has been adapted extensively in the health care domains of different countries in order to enhance both the quality as well as the expanse of the service provision framework of health care facilities in these countries (Shortridge et al., 2018). Extensive studies have been conducted in this aspect and as Paul, Bhuimali & Aithal (2017), argues, this method of health care provision facilitates both the patients as well as the care providers in terms of convenience, time and cost efficiency as well as effectiveness, as in health care provision, time and costs are immensely crucial factors.

In this context, the health care system of New Zealand, although performing well as a whole, there are some structural and crucial problems in the primary health care provision, especially in the aspects of funding, provision and inequality in the distribution of the necessary services, particularly among the poor people (Harris et al, 2012). As can be seen from the reports of the Ministry of Social Development of the country, the poorer section of the population, Samoa and Maori, uses much less primary health care services than they need due to the inequality in distribution and factors like racial discrimination. The expats (people not living in their home countries) coming to New Zealand also face difficulties in obtaining the cheaper primary health care services and often have to resort to much costlier private sector services which reduces their economic welfare (Msd.govt.nz, 2018).

Health Care System of New Zealand

Given the problems discussed above, regarding the crisis in the primary health care provision system in New Zealand, it thus, it becomes crucial to explore the probable solutions for the same in the country. The concerned research, keeping this into consideration, aims to explore opportunities of implementing telehealth in the primary health care provision sector of New Zealand. As this form of health care service, enables easy, fast and cost-effective means of dissemination of information regarding the patient’s conditions and also the relevant treatment, with the help of telecommunication infrastructures, it can have huge implications in more efficient and extensive provision of primary health care in the country, by removal of the existing physical blockages and the underprivileged sections of the society can be specifically benefitted, which makes the concerned research considerably significant.

Literature Review

As discussed in the above sections, the concept of “Telehealth” and its implications have gained increased popularity with time and there exists impressive literary and scholarly evidences across the globe regarding this technological innovation in the health care industry and its potentials. This section tries to conduct an extensive review of the important literary and empirically evidenced scholarly works present in this domain.

One of the most comprehensive definition of the concerned phenomenon is found in the work of Lee & Harada (2012), who citing the definition provided by the International Organization for Standardization, refers to Telehealth as the medium for provision of medical and health education, telemedicine and medical guidance over long and short distances with the help of the improved telecommunication technology. The medical services can now be provided with the help of video conferencing and other communication methods, which as per the authors can contribute immensely in changing the ways of health care provision in future (VandenBos & Williams, 2000).

The argument put forward by the previous authors can be found to be augmented in the working paper of Gagnon et al. (2007), where the authors highlight the need for this technology in the global framework. As per the assertions of the authors, one of the biggest problems which the health care sector of almost all the countries across the globe face, is that of lack of availability of sufficient supply of medical human resources, especially in the remote, underdeveloped and rural communities, who are often devoid of many amenities of life. The authors also suggest that implementing telehealth care facilities can help the medical service providers to know the medical conditions of such populations, which can thereby help them in providing medical guidance to the patients or to rural health care representatives, thereby mitigating the supply blockage to a considerable extent (Jennett et al., 2003).

Literary Review

Bardsley, Steventon & Doll (2013), in this context, puts forward an interesting aspect of implementation of telehealth care services in the general health care framework. In their empirically evidenced paper, the authors argue that while the concept of telehealth has been increasingly implemented in the aspects of providing care to the people having long-term medical conditions and the impacts of the same on the hospital usage have been extensively studied, not much work has been done to see what implications the same can have on the primary health care sectors of the countries across the globe.

According to Doarn et al. (2014), the implementation of telehealth care services can be highly beneficial in the aspects of monitoring health care needs consistently and efficiently through the usage of telecare devices, which on one hand may reduce the health care funding concerns (especially in primary heath care sector) and can also improve the overall cost effectiveness as well as distribution of the concerned facilities. However, several crucial barriers in the provision of such a technologically supporting form of health care have been identified by Campling et al. (2017). In their paper, the authors argue that there still exists huge unawareness regarding this method of health care provision and people in general, are not comfortable with the usage of the equipment required for telehealth care. The infrastructures at many places are still not developed, according to the authors for the implementation of the concerned health care practice, which together pose as considerable hurdles in the path of implementation of the same.

Literature Gap

Although there are various literary works in the field of telehealth care, however little has been researched regarding the implementation of the same in the primary sectors. Also, the implications of the same on New Zealand in general and on the Maoris, Samoa or expats have not been studied robustly.

The concerned research, aims to study the importance of telehealth in the contemporary period and the implications of implementation of the same in the primary health care sector of New Zealand, especially on Maori, Samoa, immigrant or expat population, who in general, fall under the deprived sections of the society.

Research Methods

For the project to be robust and insightful, a proper research method and framework is required. For the concerned study, the following framework will be followed:

As primary data are collected by the researchers themselves, it is generally devoid of intentional biasness or lack of quality. Keeping this into consideration, the study aims to collect and analyse primary data in the forms of interviews with relevant respondents:

Research Methodology

Quantitative Analysis

For quantitative analysis, the study aims to select a sample of 50 respondents from the adult population of New Zealand (consisting of Maoris, Samoa and immigrants) with the help of purposive sampling and conduct surveys with them, after receiving their consent (Neuman, 2013). The interviews will be in the form of survey questionnaires which the respondents will be asked to fill and the questions will mainly be close-ended ones with options provided for the respondents. Statistical platform SPSS will be used for analysis of the collected data.

Qualitative Analysis

Not all the aspects of the concerned issue cannot be taken into account cardinally. To take into account the abstract aspects and perceptions of people regarding the advantages, prospects and problems of implementation of telehealth in primary health care provision of New Zealand, the research will conduct in-depth interviews with 20 respondents, of which 10 will be selected from the above-mentioned 50 respondents and 10 others from the service providers in the primary health sector of the concerned country. The interviews will contain open-ended questions regarding their perceptions regarding the above-mentioned ordinal aspects of the concerned issue. Thematic analysis will be conducted for interpreting the collected qualitative evidences (Marczyk, DeMatteo & Festinger, 2017). 

Secondary Analysis

The research also aims to study the literatures, reports and statistical evidences present globally in the concerned issue of telehealth and its implementations and implications to draw reference and compare the scenario of New Zealand with that of the overall global situations.

Bardsley, M., Steventon, A., & Doll, H. (2013). Impact of telehealth on general practice contacts: findings from the whole systems demonstrator cluster randomised trial. BMC health services research, 13(1), 395.

Campling, N. C., Pitts, D. G., Knight, P. V., & Aspinall, R. (2017). A qualitative analysis of the effectiveness of telehealthcare devices (ii) barriers to uptake of telehealthcare devices. BMC health services research, 17(1), 466.

Doarn, C. R., Pruitt, S., Jacobs, J., Harris, Y., Bott, D. M., Riley, W., … & Oliver, A. L. (2014). Federal efforts to define and advance telehealth—a work in progress. Telemedicine and e-Health, 20(5), 409-418.

Gagnon, M. P., Duplantie, J., Fortin, J. P., & Landry, R. (2007). Exploring the effects of telehealth on medical human resources supply: a qualitative case study in remote regions. BMC Health Services Research, 7(1), 6.

Harris, R., Cormack, D., Tobias, M., Yeh, L. C., Talamaivao, N., Minster, J., & Timutimu, R. (2012). Self-reported experience of racial discrimination and health care use in New Zealand: results from the 2006/07 New Zealand Health Survey. American journal of public health, 102(5), 1012-1019.

Jennett, P., Jackson, A., Healy, T., Ho, K., Kazanjian, A., Woollard, R., … & Bates, J. (2003). A study of a rural community’s readiness for telehealth. Journal of Telemedicine and telecare, 9(5), 259-263.

Lee, A. C. W., & Harada, N. (2012). Telehealth as a means of health care delivery for physical therapist practice. Physical therapy, 92(3), 463-468.

Marczyk, G., DeMatteo, D., & Festinger, D. (2017). Essentials of research design and methodology. John Wiley.

Msd.govt.nz. (2018). Primary Health Care In New Zealand: Problems And Policy Approaches – Ministry of Social Development. Retrieved from https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/journals-and-magazines/social-policy-journal/spj21/21-primary-health-care-in-new-zealand-pages49-66.html

Neuman, W. L. (2013). Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Pearson education.

Paul, P., Bhuimali, A., & Aithal, P. S. (2017). Allied Medical and Health Science and Advanced Telecommunications: Emerging Utilizations and its Need in Indian Healthcare System.

Schumacher, A. (2015). Teleheath: Current Barriers, Potential Progress. Ohio St. LJ, 76, 409.

Shortridge, A., Ross, H., Randall, K., Ciro, C., & Loving, G. (2018). Teleheath technology as e-learning: Learning and practicing interprofessional patient care. International Journal on E-Learning, 17(1), 95-110.

Skiba, D. J. (2015). Connected health 2015: The year of virtual patient visits. Nursing Education Perspectives, 36(2), 131.

VandenBos, G. R., & Williams, S. (2000). The Internet versus the telephone: What is telehealth anyway?. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 31(5), 490.