As a physician or practice manager in 2020, creating Telehealth services was unavoidable!
Though telehealth has been essential in providing accessible healthcare treatment options during this tumultuous time, alongside the benefits, it carries lots of risk, liability, and problems if the IT infrastructure supporting your telehealth services aren’t set up for success.
Though technology allowed healthcare providers to quickly pull together telehealth options at the onset of COVID-19, now it’s time to make sure your telehealth infrastructure is properly set up.
That’s why it’s so critical to take a step back, review your operational processes, and ensure that your telehealth technology tools are being used to streamline your services and meet compliance requirements.
Best Telehealth Technology Tools for 2021
As you build or refine your telehealth services, it’s important to always keep the patient’s viewpoint in mind. Though there may be hoops patients and providers have to jump through in order to meet compliance requirements, the more you can do to mitigate confusion, operational gaps, and miscommunication, the better your telehealth services (and patients) will be!
That’s why we fully believe that the telehealth technology tools start with clear, effective, and accessible communication, so your patients know where to go and how to reach you, even if they’re uncomfortable with technology. We recommend that you write clear, centralized copy that communicates your telehealth process, using it to create the following pieces of evergreen content:
- Website landing pages. (For example, “FAQs for Telehealth” or “Check out our telehealth services.”)
- Phone scripts
- Emails
- Social media posts
- Instructional videos
Technology Tools of Telehealth Services
In order to set up well-functioning, efficient telehealth services, here are the basic technology tools we recommend for your organization:
- Secure network connections
- Audio or video conferencing software
- Secure file-sharing software
- Secure document signing software
- Payment portals
- Scheduling software
Telemedicine Bandwidth Requirements
One of the biggest challenges when creating telehealth services is the element you can’t control: the patient’s environment. Though patients and providers may be using the same software for a telehealth call, the networks accessing the call from all sides can vary greatly in their level of strength and security, leaving both patients and providers vulnerable to liability and cybersecurity threats.
Though there’s unfortunately no way to mitigate this even with the telehealth technology tools in place, the threat of liability can be minimized by ensuring all patients and providers are meeting the minimum telehealth bandwidth requirements with a secure, password-protected network connection.
If you’re struggling to find the best network to power your telehealth platform for your organization, start a free consultation with one of our {{cta(‘167def2d-62c8-43c1-8469-f15b71209e69’)}}
