Unifying Telemedicine Efforts Fuels Virtual Care Success

Many health systems' journeys into wide-scale virtual care really began with the urgent need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some health systems have been able to streamline and standardize processes across their extensive networks, even extending care to such locations as rural schools. Success lies in strategic collaboration between leaders who prioritize new virtual care areas, demonstrate value, and ensure seamless integration with staff, patients and stakeholders.

Transitioning from decentralized efforts to a unified framework is one way a health system can achieve notable milestones such as significant time savings for nursing staff and securing grants for community-based care initiatives. Such a unified approach can ensure sustainable growth and technological integration, delivering effective virtual care experiences to diverse communities.

Realizing Value from Telehealth Programs: How to Make It Happen

For many health systems, their first foray with virtual care came during the pandemic. While telemedicine and health offers immense value during times of crisis – whether global pandemic, natural disaster or staffing emergency – health systems are quickly learning the staying power of these programs within their organizations to help achieve clinical, operational and business goals. 

However, disjointed approaches to implementing virtual care – including the technologies, workflows, protocols, governance, and clinical and business objectives involved – may actually lead to increased costs and often can lead to poor patient and care team experiences, making it difficult to realize value.

By taking an enterprise systems approach to virtual care planning, implementation and expansion, leaders at Valley Health were able to avoid this pitfall and maximize the benefits of virtual care for their patients, care teams and their health system in general.

Health systems should prioritize the following: 

• Understand how the needs of individual clinical/business groups are tied to the needs of others, and to the enterprise as a whole.

• Identify key stakeholders who will be critical to overall success, and their definitions of "value."

• Identify the best places to start to get results that speak directly to the value needs.

• Build clinical and business champions and momentum for the next steps.

• Ensure the best potential to address organizational workforce, clinical, business and IT needs while improving access to care, patient experience and quality outcomes.

Key Takeaway from HIMSS25: What Attendees Can Apply Back at Their Organizations

The overarching takeaway is that a collaborative, enterprise approach to virtual care planning and expansion can ensure holistic, scalable and patient-centered results to achieve maximum value – aligning technology, workflows and people for sustainable, high-quality care across the health system.

However, the learnings we'll cover are applicable across any process improvement initiatives that require an enterprise approach or new approaches to governance to ensure success.

As health systems look to extend their current resources to optimize patient care, outcomes and experiences, we hope Valley Health's experiences and our discussion offers strategies and insights for overcoming potential obstacles to virtual care adoption and scalability, including governance, staff change management, interoperability challenges and technology considerations.

Source: https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ 

Prepared by: Next Move Strategy Consulting