Telehealth Books by Sheila Wheeler

The Pandemic has propelled Telehealth to center stage virtually overnight.  Now an essential aspect of care, Telehealth clinical training is also essential!  All training tools for a complete system are listed here.

Ms Wheeler’s newest training manual is  Telehealth: Essentials  for Expert Clinical Practice   revision of the 1993 training manual,  and includes a Standards Manual.  Telehealth Risk Management in Ambulatory and Pre-Hospital Settings.  Telehealth Guidelines is a review of Common Presenting Symptoms and may serve as a training tool for clinical staff.  It may also be used as a reference to any guidelines – electronic or paper.

Managers: Jump start your clinical training  for existing or new clinical staff!  The texts are unique, evidence-based and practical  — for a group or a new hire as a self-study.  Get staff up to speed quickly, and check that task off your list!  To date, no evidence has shown that, by themselves, electronic algorithms can safely replace the need for a complete system, including clinical training.  Training  materials are an essential component of a basic  telehealth system.

What is Telehealth?  

Telehealth is a broad term that refers to technological expansion (using video, bioteletry, telemonitoring, patient wearables) of remote contacts.  Telehealth also refers to the clinical practice of pre-hospital assessment of symptoms utilizing all of the technologies noted above.  Telehealth emerged nearly overnight during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when remote tele-visits became mandatory during the lock-down. Telehealth is here to stay, and soon telehealth will subsume telephone triage.

Telemedicine is defined as “telephonic medical diagnosis of patients’ problem and their medical treatment”  (Reisman). Telemedicine is typically performed by physicians, whereas telephone triage and telehealth may be performed by RNs.

According to Wikipedia, Telehealth is the “delivery of health-related services and information via telecommunications technologies”. Telehealth,  unlike telemedicine (which narrowly focuses on the diagnosis of symptoms) focuses on pre-hospital symptom assessment and evaluation to prevent delays in care and treatment.  A key function of telehealth (and telephone triage) is that of access to appropriate and timely care.  Both are a form of pre-hospital care and the patients’ initial contact in the health care continuum.

Key Telehealth Trends?

SHEILA WHEELER, RN, MS.,  Founder of TeleTriage Systems, has achieved international recognition as a pioneer, thought leader and expert in telephone triage and telehealth. She is an accomplished writer and researcher. Ms. Wheeler is currently retired.

Ms. Wheeler’s work is laser-focused on patient safety and risk management in telehealth. To that end, Ms. Wheeler developed a telehealth system with standards-based and evidence based components that is complete. Her guidelines are unique — comprehensive, age-specific, with a 5-level triage approach and serving  the needs of the widest range of patient populations including  underserved communities — low-income, high-risk, low literacy.  Wheeler’s guidelines are currently used by physicians in Bhopal, India. 

CLIENT FEEDBACK

D.L, RN, MSN, PHN. California.   “Your work is a godsend. I am truly grateful to have found it. Thank you for all you do.”