Chapter 8 - Case Study 3: Technological Advances Create Digital Divide in Health Care

1. Can you provide examples that either refute or confirm the idea that a gap exists between the kinds of healthcare services available to the wealthy and the poor in the United States?

A. - Inequality in economic resources is a natural but not altogether attractive feature of a free society. As health care becomes an ever larger share of the economy, we will have no choice but to struggle with the questions of how far we should allow such inequality to extend and what restrictions on our liberty we should endure in the name of fairness."At its root, the lack of health care for all in America is fundamentally a moral issue. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have some form of universal health care (defined as a basic guarantee of health care to all of its citizens). While other countries have declared health care to be a basic right, the United States treats health care as a privilege, only available to those who can afford it... Americans purport to believe in equal opportunity. Yet, in the current situation, those who do not have health care are at risk for financial ruin and poorer health, both of which disadvantage them in society and thereby do not give them equal opportunity.




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2. Should healthcare organizations make major investments in telemedicine to provide
improved services that only the wealthy can afford?

A. - For me I can say that it is a business that they want to gain profit. They create this for everybody but as what being observed only those who has money used this technology because they are the one who can afford to it.

3. What are the drawbacks of telemedicine? What situations might not lend themselves to
telemedicine solutions?


A. - Telemedicine is a vast subject, but as yet there are limited data on the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of most telemedicine applications. As a result, objective information about the benefits and drawbacks of telemedicine is limited. This review is therefore based mainly on preliminary results, opinions and predictions. Many potential benefits of telemedicine can be envisaged, including: improved access to information; provision of care not previously deliverable; improved access to services and increasing care delivery; improved professional education; quality control of screening programmes; and reduced health-care costs.