Telehealth and Emerging Care Technologies

Advancing telehealth technology and improving implementation

Telehealth technology has become one of this year’s most prominent topics. As a critical reaction to the pandemic, a major rush toward telehealth and new technology adoption swept the healthcare industry. Many existing solutions ramped up their offerings and reprioritized their focus so that telehealth could quickly be delivered at such a crucial time.

Recently, we interviewed Colin Hung, COO, and Editor at Healthcare IT Today, on The Connected Care Team podcast to discuss this rush for emerging telehealth technology and the widespread implementation of new solutions, AI, healthcare IT, the state of EHRs, and more.

In the early months of the pandemic, there were initial questions surrounding what telehealth pertained and if organizations needed it. Those questions quickly shifted to, “Okay, we do need it, now what do we need it to do? How do we choose the right solution and what integrations will we need?“

Amplifying Integrations

Following the industry pivot, there’s now a broadening of how telehealth solutions and related technology are defined, be it video consults, secure texting, or a simple phone call. More than anything, people are seeking solutions that integrate with the technology they’ve already invested in.

• EHR Optimization: Electronic health records (EHRs) have grown in usability through integrations with other software, making the EHR investment more worthwhile. With the expansion of telehealth combined with EHR capabilities, there’s now an option for further collaboration with other technologies.
• Data Consolidation: Any clinical communication strategy should begin with data consolidation. With so many varied sources of data and record-keeping, the challenge becomes unifying all information into one single source.
• Advancing Voice Capabilities: Looking ahead toward telehealth’s continued expansion, voice is expected to make further inroads in the coming years. Voice capabilities eliminate the need to enter exhaustive notes during an appointment, providing faster, detailed data input and improving the patient experience in real-time

Barriers to Telehealth Expansion

While other industries are moving toward cloud-based systems and secure mobile technology, healthcare lags in adopting new communication technology. The majority of modern healthcare organizations are still using archaic systems such as fax, pagers, and on-premise servers.

The primary reason for this tech delay is simple: integration is difficult.

Effective telehealth and technology implementation takes time, money, and effort that many organizations are unable to invest. Existing solutions may morph or change over time, but the process of a complete overhaul continues to be slow.

This means that the largest potential barrier to telehealth is the failure to integrate new technology into tangible use cases and real-life situations.

Creating appointments, recording patient data, and communicating efficiently between teams and patients will see the most success if it’s simplified. A difficult solution will be far less likely to be adopted, regardless of how great the technology seems.

Additionally, the technology surrounding virtual care should be seamless, free of new app requirements, and ideally, cloud-based for enhanced security and HIPAA-compliance.

Pushing Technology Forward

Offering convenient ways to connect for providers and patients is what telehealth and advancements in healthcare technology are all about.

Colin’s advice? Look for quick wins and easy ways to improve the lives of both physicians and patients alike. Better workflows lead to a better patient experience.

From telehealth technology to the EHR, to data optimization, the right platform provides a comprehensive solution to unite virtual care and efficient communication. To learn more about healthcare’s expanding technologies, AI, and the implementations discussed in the interview with Colin Hung, check out our latest episode of The Connected Care Team podcast.

 

The Connected Care Team Podcast The need for a centralized place where patient-provider communications and collaboration can coincide is the main idea behind The Connected Care Team podcast. Our goal is to unite the care team and discover how improving clinical workflows ultimately means better care for patients. EPISODE 5

 

Tags: telehealth technology, TeleHealth, Healthcare Technology, Virtual Care, Healthcare IT, Care Team Collaboration