3 Insights on Successful Telehealth Programs

By Harrison Cook, Becker’s Hospital Review | November 21, 2018

Hospitals seeking entry into the telehealth field often face skeptical patients who are unfamiliar with telehealth services and how they offer patients the same quality care they get at their physician’s office.

At the Becker’s Hospital Review 7th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, Alan Roga, MD, president at TeleDoc, moderated a panel on the innovations key members of the telehealth industry are experiencing when it comes to providing patients with quality care.

Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and style.

Here are three insights on what it takes to have a successful consumer telehealth program:

“One of the places a lot of systems go wrong is spending a lot of time on the technology: What’s the technology? What’s new? What’s coming out? Who’s got what? At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It’s a fool’s game to win. What really makes a successful telehealth program is looking at your strategy and looking at your patient feedback. In strategy, you should be looking at what problem you are trying to solve, and that is where you should spend 95 percent of your time. With patient feedback, your patients have concerns about using your program, because more than likely you are going to be their introduction to virtual care,” said Jonathan Baker-McBride, telehealth manager at Orlando (Fla.) Health.

“If you are going to fail, fail quickly. If you are going to start an app, get moving on it,” said Max Maile, vice president at Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Parkview Health System.

“It’s all about stategy and what technology fits best for that strategy. If your strategy is to take care of new patient acquisitions and you begin by taking care of the scheduled, established patients, you blew it,” said Judd Hollander, MD, senior vice president of healthcare delivery innovation at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia.

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