The Explosion of Telehealth Services

The Explosion of Telehealth Services Guest Author

Editor’s note: Commercial Integrator has teamed up with the IMCCA, the New York-based non-profit industry association for unified communication and workplace collaboration, to produce a quarterly supplement, titled Collaboration Today and Tomorrow, that focuses on all things collaboration from multiple perspectives.

For many years, virtual health services in the U.S. — such as using videoconferencing technologies — was not widespread. Medical professionals were concerned about exposure to litigation stemming from these electronic systems. Well, this is just another story about how the pandemic has changed the world, permanently. Medical professionals became concerned about exposure to viruses, which led to an explosion in the use of telehealth processes and systems in the U.S.

Key Changes in Telehealth

This acceleration in telehealth led to a number of changes in the healthcare market. Some of those changes include the following:

• Increased demand: The pandemic has led to a significant increase in demand for telehealth services, with patients seeking to avoid in-person visits to healthcare facilities as a means of reducing their risk of infection.
• Changes in reimbursement policies: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), as well as many private-insurance companies, relaxed their rules for telehealth reimbursement. This has allowed more services to be covered and enabled more patients to access telehealth services.
• New technologies: To meet increasing demand, many healthcare providers have adopted new telehealth technologies, such as virtual-visit platforms and remote-monitoring tools.
• Growth in telehealth adoption: According to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, telehealth adoption in the U.S. increased from 11% in 2019 to 42% in 2020.
• Expansion of telehealth to rural areas: Telehealth has been a huge help to those in remote areas, who had been suffering from a lack of healthcare providers. Indeed, it helped bridge the gap between rural-area and urban-area healthcare providers.
• Changes in regulations: The pandemic has also led to temporary changes in regulations, such as loosening restrictions on the use of telehealth in certain settings and allowing healthcare providers to practice across state lines.

It’s important to point out that these represent long-term changes. The pandemic has accelerated the acceptance and adoption of telehealth, and it’s very likely that these changes — and many others that we’ve seen during the pandemic — will become permanent.

So, if you’re a technology integrator whose firm has worked in hospitals and other healthcare environments in the past, what should you be doing to prepare for these changes to the space? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot. The first step is to familiarize yourself with the various telehealth platforms and technologies available on the market. Then, you should determine which ones best suit your clients’ needs.

Download: Collaboration Today and Tomorrow: Spring 2023 Edition

Key Telehealth Organizations and Firms

There are a handful of organizations and firms providing services in this area. What follows are just a few examples:

• Athenahealth is a company that operates a cloud-based medical platform that offers a range of services, including electronic health records (EHR), revenue-cycle management and patient engagement. It was founded in 1997, and it’s headquartered in Watertown, Mass. The company provides its services to medical groups, hospitals and other healthcare organizations.
• Epic Systems Corp. is a privately held healthcare-software company that develops and sells EHR software, practice-management software and other healthcare-related software. The company was founded by Judith Faulkner in 1979, and it’s headquartered in Verona, Wis. The company’s flagship product, Epic EHR, is one of the most widely used EHR systems in the U.S. MyChart is the patient portal for Epic EHR, and it allows patients to access their health information, communicate with their healthcare providers and schedule appointments.
• Caregility is a company that provides telehealth solutions and telemedicine services to healthcare providers. It is a provider of patient-centered, interoperable and cost-effective telehealth solutions to help healthcare organizations improve patient care, reduce costs and increase efficiencies. The company’s platform is designed to work with existing hospital workflows and IT infrastructure, and it’s able to interface with a wide range of clinical devices, including cameras, microphones and vital-sign monitors. Caregility’s platform provides a range of telemedicine and telehealth services, including remote patient monitoring, tele-ICU, tele-stroke, tele-psychiatry and tele-rehabilitation. The company was founded in 2008, and it’s headquartered in Morristown, N.J.

One-Stop Shops for Patients

There are also a number of companies that provide both the technology and the healthcare professionals, thus serving as one-stop shops for patients (and for insurance companies, which want to provide these services to patients to save on the reimbursement costs of customers visiting doctors).  Some of these include the following:

• Teladoc Health: Teladoc Health is one of the largest and most well-known telehealth companies in the world. It offers a wide range of virtual-healthcare services, including virtual primary care, specialty care and behavioral health.
• American Well (Amwell): Amwell is a telehealth company that offers a variety of virtual-care services, including virtual primary care, behavioral health and chronic-disease management.
• MDLIVE: MDLIVE is a telehealth company that provides virtual primary care, behavioral health and specialist services.
• Telmedicine: Telmedicine is a company that provides a variety of telehealth services, including virtual primary care, specialist consultations and remote patient monitoring.

Apart from familiarizing yourself with these, your firm and you should develop a strong understanding of regulatory and compliance requirements related to telehealth, such as HIPAA and telemedicine laws. You’ll also need to have a proper security infrastructure in place to protect patient privacy and any data that your team, through its normal operations, might come in contact with.

In conclusion, as the demand for telehealth services continues to grow, commercial integrators must quickly take steps to prepare yourselves to meet this demand. Those steps include everything explained, as well as just keeping yourselves updated on the latest laws, trends and advancements in the telehealth industry. By taking those steps, integrators like you will be well positioned to provide valuable telehealth-related services to your clients while also helping improve patient care and, in the process, reducing costs and increasing efficiencies.

Download a digital version of the Spring 2023 Collaboration Today and Tomorrow issue here.

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Carol Zelkin is executive director of the IMCCA.

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