Monday, May 2, 2016

Important Ideas On Telemedicine Implementation

By Betty Smith


Hospitals and health facilities are on the verge of implementing telemedicine programs. The program comprises of virtual health coaches, telemedicine health centers and rooms, cloud-based physicians, and highly trained web consultants. With proper planning, right people, modern technology, and effective analysis of workflow, telemedicine implementation becomes an easy task. Both telemedicine and telehealth have ability to increase access to healthcare services, improve their quality, and decrease their cost. Additionally, hospitals can minimize administrative expenses and still manage to maintain an operational excellence.

With proper execution, hospitals are likely to reduce expenditures and improve their operation. Engaging the administrative or executive team can prove to be a difficult task during the implementation of telehealth project. Naturally, some members of executive team may fail to support the project and term it as expensive and invaluable. It is your duty to convince them that the project will be valuable to the hospital. Currently, the physicians are using technology tools to offer care service even though it is not in an official manner. The same case applies to patients, most consults the physicians through phone or video calls.

Conducting a market research and establishing the potential it possesses is imperative. You must assess your capabilities and see if the quality of care services you offer addresses the unique needs of communities. Mobilize your executive team and encourage them to engage with the community at diverse levels and find out healthcare services that are needed by the community. Analysis of patient outcome data can help you to know the type of services required by a particular community.

When you have understood the potential possessed by the market, the next step is assessing whether your hospital has the right equipment, facilities, and personnel to offers service that the community requires. Make sure the physicians are supporting execution of telemedicine program. For example, if your intention is to provide pediatric neurology service, you should ensure you have the right number of pediatric neurologist. They must be interested in provision of telemedicine service. Organize a committee to conduct readiness assessment and identify the perfect starting point.

Come up with goals that are clear, precise, and achievable. Involve everyone in the goal making process and ensure the goals of project align with those of hospital. Mobilize the hospital leaders to support implementation of telemedicine program. However, they must see how the program will benefit the hospital.

It is important to work with a timeline for implementing the project. Every stage must be assigned a specific timeline by which it must be completed. However, the timeline tends to be affected by hospital size and program goals. Therefore, ample time should be allocated for each stage.

Make sure you have a strong administrative support since you will have the guarantee to access the required resources for implementation. Encourage both the patient and the physician to embrace the technology. Additionally, the administrative team can assist you in dealing with tight timeline.

Telemedicine creates an amazing flexibility since the physicians are able to see the patients. The can give more attention to patients who have major issues, but still address the needs of those with minor ones. Effective implementation is guaranteed when the service provider receive perfect training.




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