Supplementing Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease care with Telehealth

Abstract

The progressive, debilitating nature of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) justifies the need to incorporate integrated telehealth nursing services into healthcare interventions for patients with this condition. COPD patients are susceptible to high symptom burden, which usually creates the need for frequent hospitalization. Telehealth could help patients and healthcare professionals deal with the challenge of limited access to healthcare resources and the low supply of specialty physicians by allowing COPD patients and healthcare professionals to regularly communicate, regardless of their locations.

The purpose of this functional thesis was to create a poster as a visual guide for healthcare professionals and patients about COPD care with telehealth. The objective of this functional thesis is to create awareness about the usage of Telehealth services in COPD care to both healthcare professionals and patients regarding the utilization of Telehealth services in COPD care, emphasizing on enhanced management of COPD, and boosting the quality of healthcare services offered to patients with COPD. The information search for the key results and poster thrives on reliable databases of information from CINAHL and MEDLINE.

This functional thesis defines chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and discusses the challenges experienced by COPD patients in accessing healthcare services. Subsequently, we explore the significance of telehealth in the care of patients with COPD and the obstacles preventing its effective utilization in COPD care. Our results reveal that COPD patients commonly face the challenges of lack of connection to the health care team and poor management of symptoms. Telehealth provides an alternative means of offering support and detecting early exacerbations aimed at preventing hospital admissions for patients with COPD. The obstacles preventing the effective utilization of telehealth in COPD care are comorbidity management, medication adherence, and patient education.

The functional thesis points out the need to explore further the long-term effectiveness of telehealth interventions in the management of COPD patients. In addition, further research on patients' behaviour concerning the use of telemonitoring devices is recommended.