Telemedicine is a newer concept in medicine that utilizes technological devices to provide care to patients. In a society already greatly advanced with technology, telemedicine is the new frontier in healthcare. Implementing telemedicine into current practices will benefit both the patient and the provider. The use of technology generates an overall ease of use, decreased travel time, decreased loss from work, increased patient interaction, and increased interprofessional collaboration. The cost of implementation is minimal compared to vast cost savings that will be accrued from utilizing technology. There are many regions of health care where telemedicine can be implemented such as primary care, surgical, orthopedic, rehabilitation, as well as research oriented. An emerging setting is athletic training and sports medicine. There is a great potential for the regular use of telemedicine to drastically change the profession of athletic training for the better. So many of the skills athletic trainers do on a regular basis can be completed via telemedicine and can provide numerous benefits for the clinician, the patient, and the organization. Additionally, using technology to provide care would expedite the recovery process for the patient without restrictions of distance or time away from school/sport. Telemedicine will advance the medical system by allowing a larger number of patients to have access to high quality health care identical to a face-to-face visit.
Purpose: Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) programs prepare student-civilians to become leaders through strenuous physical and leadership training. Unlike their student-athlete counterparts who have direct access to athletic training services, ROTC cadets may or may not have a healthcare provider available. The purpose of this study was to examine the access to care and reporting behaviors of ROTC cadets with a secondary aim exploring the quality of healthcare service interactions relative to patient-centered care. Methods: An online survey assessed access to care using a self-report tool on the type of medical providers available to the ROTC cadets (n=132, age=20±3 y) dispersed between the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, and their illness/injury history and reporting behaviors. The participants who sought care for an injury/illness also completed the Consultation and Relational Empathy tool to measure the level of patient-centered care by the healthcare provider with follow-up analysis using the Consultation Care Measure tool for all athletic training service interactions. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: ROTC cadets reported access to 2±1 healthcare providers including a designated civilian physician (26.5%), athletic trainer (23.5%), and ROTC peer first responder (14.4%). However, 50.8% of respondents stated they were unsure what healthcare providers were available. In total, 22.7% of cadets reported being injured and 26.5% reported being sick/ill while participating in ROTC activities. Of those who stated they had sustained an injury during ROTC, 59.9% seldomly or never reported their injury. The ROTC cadets who sought healthcare expressed they were satisfied with their injury (35.96±10.60) and illness (35.48±13.10) treatment from a patient-centered viewpoint. Conclusions: The ROTC cadets reported a general unfamiliarity with the healthcare providers available to them. Despite the reporting behaviors, the cadets reported being satisfied with the care they received.
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