How can you implement telehealth in your healthcare facility?

You really need to understand your provider base and your patient/client demographics. I’ve seen too many tele-health projects fail because the provider base was not ready or on-board to adopt the technology. Cultivate a strong group of early adopters that can showcase successes before investing into expensive systems.

The pandemic made the business case for Tele health and Tele medicine real! It is critical for patients to be connected to providers digitally as an alternate access to care solution. Navigation to digital care and integration of pay of care as well as security of patient data is critical for scaling tele health initiatives. The provider and members both need to be educated on the evolving way to access care, while setting up expectations on cost efficiencies, if applicable.

Implementing Telehealth/telemedicine is very crucial and important. It gives flexibility to give patient and provider connect from remote location to get care. Clearly define your reasons for establishing the telemedicine program and set measurable goals. Identify the key metrics you will consider to evaluate your program’s success.

Telehealth really helps patients to be more connected with physicians and other health professionals from a remote location. We need to understand that Telehealth might differ depending if we're LMIC and I believed that's the biggest challenge, the accessibility to internet - new technology and healthcare data security (privacy and security concerns in telehealth). On the other hand, the way to measure the impact and outcome of telehealth: 1. Establishing a multidisciplinary team with experience in the field 2. Realistic goals in short, middle and long term 3. Key metrics to evaluate

To implement a telehealth program effectively, participating sites must undergo resource assessments to evaluate equipment readiness. Credentialing and privileging in telemedicine depend on the requirements of the facilities where the physician practices and the source of service payment or reimbursement.

Setting up telehealth: 1. Need to identify the vendor for the video visit and define the flow/model. 2. Work with stakeholders (clinical, technical and regulatory teams) 3. If we choose video visits then important to work on setting up provider, patient and waiting rooms. 4. Coordinate with the regulatory teams. 5. Should understand the proxy workflow. 6. Interpreter services handling in Telehealth.

I’d suggest to always start simple and inexpensive first - which means - start with just video first. How can you improve your organizations care delivery by implementing video visits, consultations or remote specialty consultations etc? Across all your specialties of care? Start there, don’t invest in hardware yet, it’s too expensive to implement and maintain and gets outdated quickly - especially if you’re unsure what adoption will be. Once your organization gains success with virtual care, add on remote patient monitoring or other tools.

It is vital to recognise the limitations of telehealth and be careful not to diminish the need for physical and tangible actions in certain situations. Having an attitude of collaboration rather than 'replacement' of conventional care can be disastrous in the long run.

Training clinical and non clinical staff is key. 1. Providing tip sheets and live sessions 2. Establishing hard test(test connections) 3. Pre and post visit concerns 4. Privacy and safety of the patient data, regulatory concerns. 5. Clearly define the advantages over disadvantages. 6. Train the providers about disconnecting issues.

Training staff for telehealth involves onboarding sessions, hands-on training, simulations, and role-specific guidance. Licensed staff should adhere to ethical guidelines. Educating patients entails clear communication on telehealth benefits and process, user guides, and security measures. Make information accessible and consider diverse needs. Provide support channels and gather patient feedback. Promote telehealth through various channels, adapting your approach based on patient demographics and feedback.

Make sure you apply the law of diffusion of innovation. Start by targeting the "innovators" and "early adopters" within the organization, typically the tech-savvy and forward-thinking individuals who are open to trying new technologies. Showcase the project's benefits, how it addresses current challenges, and its potential to create positive outcomes. As these early adopters embrace the innovation, they become advocates who can influence others. Leverage their success stories and testimonials to build credibility and garner support from the "early majority" and beyond. Tailor communication and training materials to address the varying needs and concerns of each group, ensuring that everyone feels comfortable in adopting the new technology.

Integrating the telehealth/ video visits to the existing or within the healthcare systems is key to success. Integrating with patient portals and EHR systems is important to get success of patient retention.

It’s 2023, tele-health is healthcare. We don’t do ‘tele-banking’ we need to drop the prefix. If organizations don’t embrace the future of healthcare, they won’t be around to participate in it.

The ideal system is one that takes the strengths of conventional healthcare and marries it with telehealthcare for a seamless system. This makes it not only a habitual practice but also gives a synergistic boost to performance metrics.

With the Regulatory bodies legalizing Tele consultation, there's a need to be very careful in its routine application. Without any doubt, tele careis here to stay so it's better to utilize it to maximize the impact of health care service delivery. It's especially beneficial in today's times with varying accessibility to healthcare. Most people would like the personal experience of traditional consultation but Tele care is not limited to consultation only. It can be used to augment monitoring system, ensure regular timely follow-up like dots system.

Our ultimate goal is to get good patient care and satisfaction. To achieve this we are using new innovative technologies but we don’t forget about the vision and goals. We should measure the quality of the integration of telehealth and drawbacks should be addressed as well.

An unbiased third party audit is crucial for the system to be self evaluatory and self critical. Intergity should be set at a high level where punitive action is inbuilt on manipulative behaviour which has become anathema to evidence based medicine which relies hugely on scientific honesty. Giving credit to teams rather than individuals and adding endusers as stakeholders would prevent a lot of mishaps.

When I think about opportunities to expand telehealth services, “bolt” on services that adds to improving the quality of life of a patient as well as convenience comes to mind. For example, Telepharmacy as a bolt on can have many benefits to a practice. Through those type of services, Pharmacists can help with remote patient monitoring services, disease state management/consultation, and medication management programs. Many of these type of services are billable, and would work well as a partnership with a healthcare provider organization.

Expanding and scaling up Telehealth services can involve many strategies. Some include: 1. User Education—Provide clear guidelines for patients to understand how to access and use telehealth services effectively. 2. Provider Training—Train healthcare professionals to use telehealth tools efficiently and maintain a high standard of care. 3. Feedback and Improvement—Continuously gather feedback from patients and providers to identify areas for improvement. 4. Customization—Tailor telehealth solutions to fit the specific needs of different fields and patient demographics. 5. Multilingual Support—Offer telehealth services in multiple languages. 6. Research and Innovation—Stay updated with the latest advancements in telehealth technology.

A faithful fulfilment of key purposed and goals is the sine qua non for moving further up in scale. Otherwise the movement is by sheer inertia of motion which would eventually be killed by friction of inefficiency.