Exploration into Communication Fidelity in Telemedicine

Abstract

This study set out to achieve the following objectives: 1) to determine the elements of communication that might be present in a telemedicine communication system; 2) to determine the existing communication model that best fits the current telemedicine communication system; 3) to critically discuss the telemedicine communication practices together with the communication issues involved like problems and barriers; 4) to determine the most appropriate measurement of communication fidelity that could ensure the clarity of flow of messages in a telemedicine situation; 5) to generate research hypotheses that could be tested to further the exploration by future researchers of telemedicine communication. As a methodology, this study employed the comparison of what was available in the literature and what was actually experienced. An exhaustive analysis of the literate resulted in the determination of what was referred to or at least implied in the literature as elements of the communication process as applied in the telemedicine situation, and the elements of the communication process as experienced by the author in the actual practice of telemedicine. The result of this comparison was the main basis for the design of the communication model that was developed and recommended by this study. An important discovery that this study made was the determination of an additional element of the communication process specifically for telemedicine situations. It was determined from the literature that an appropriate communication model that fits telemedicine situations included an element midpoint of the traditional model. This element was the presence of an intermediary midpoint of the model. Briefly, in the traditional linear communication model, the arrangement of elements was: Source (which is the Patient) – Message – Channel – Receiver (Medical Specialist). In the telemedicine situation, this was found to be duplicated, as follows: Patient – Message – Channel – Intermediary – Message – Channel – Medical Specialist. In other words, the linear arrangement of elements was duplicated in the case of telemedicine. This was the communication model recommended to be applied in any telemedicine communication solution.