VIRTUAL CARE
Virtual healthcare has been around decades. The start of virtual pathways to communication actually started through video games (Heinrichs, Dev, & Davies, 2017). It became perhaps most popular during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to COVID-19 it was not the type of therapy or service provision of choice by agencies, providers, or patients. In addition, insurance companies and managed care providers largely did not support payment for virtual care. However, in the pandemic it was clear that means to care must come through various avenues in order for people to get the help they need. Virtual care also opened the door for people in rural communities and areas to receive the care they were not able to receive before. There are so many different platforms today where virtual treatment can occur, so-called “platforms.” Most platforms come with HIPAA compliant options to ensure privacy is occurring for the patient and provider. Video and voice is important in virtual care. Observing a persons facial expressions and affect are important to the entire care experience and through video platforms this is made possible still. There are also platforms where patient and provider can review symptoms through heart monitors and other forms of communication via virtually that have truly created a virtual atmosphere where care can exist despite the distance.
Deciding what option of care is best for you or your loved ones is different for all. There are many different variables that can determine this step in deciding which way to turn with treatment. Some also like to go back and forth between in person and virtual which is called “hybrid.” Either way, care is an important step to a whole health you. Virtual care includes communication technology, telephone calls, messages, email, remote monitoring, digital communication, a way to make health care more available to all, a process that gives more flexibility, and a way for urgent needs to be better met (Babaei et al., 2023).
Effectiveness of Virtual Health Care
Virtual care is effective with all ages. The total effectiveness is per individual on how they like virtual care and feel it is right for them. Differences do exist for preference among people receiving health care services. Lawrence et al. (2022) reports parents preferred virtual when provided opportunity to speak to the provider prior to their child’s visit and had the option for mobile virtual devices that allows exchange of photos of the issue. Parents also preferred virtual for infrequent needs that needed to be on call versus scheduled.
Virtual healthcare is effective. Over and again we see good care established through virtual health care means. Development of new and evolving methods to provide virtual health care is ongoing in the United States and we can only assume that in the coming years more will be available.
References
Babaei N, Zamanzadeh V, Valizadeh L, Lotfi M, Kousha A, Samad-Soltani T, et al. (2023). Virtual care in the health care system: A concept analysis. Scand J Caring Sci. 00: 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.13227
Heinrichs, L., Dev, P. and Davies, D. (2017). Virtual environments and virtual patients in healthcare. In Healthcare Simulation Education (eds D. Nestel, M. Kelly, B. Jolly and M. Watson). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119061656.ch10
Lawrence, J., Measey, M.-A., Hoq, M., Hiscock, H. and Rhodes, A. (2022), Virtual health care for children: Parental willingness to adopt virtual health-care technologies. J Paediatr Child Health, 58: 1323-1329. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.15974
