WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF TELEHEALTH IN HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY?
The original concept of telehealth is to provide basic care or services to patients that include medical education, remote patient monitoring, consultation via video conferencing, the transmission of imaging and medical reports, and wireless health applications. Telehealth includes a wide range of practices and specialties and involves connections among patients and providers through telephone, e-mail, video chats, the Internet, and remote devices. There is a rapid expansion of telehealth models nowadays, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, where everyone needs a safe and instant method of medical consultation.
“Health organizations are providing virtual appointments and are expanding their telehealth options, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Brian Hasselfeld
Telehealth applications are beneficial in a way that it improves both quality care and overhead practice. Following are the top advantages of telehealth in the healthcare industry:
- Advances new business models
Telehealth as a business model is shifting the pattern by advancing consumer-based care. According to mHealthIntelligence:
“Specialists are now finding that they can launch their telehealth platform to consumers, offering their services online much like a banker, real estate agent or another business person.”
With telehealth, clinicians can extend their patient base beyond brick-and-mortar facilities, extending hours, visits virtually, and creating new and more appropriate models for their patients.
- Improves patient engagement with remote monitoring
The increasing role of consumerism and value-based reimbursement in healthcare has led hospitals and health management systems to highlight new ways of interacting with their patients to engage them in self-care. Handling patients proactively requires clinicians to teach patients how to care for themselves between clinical visits. With an increase in chronic health conditions, using telemedicine for remote monitoring is just one way that medical providers can improve outcomes while still cutting costs. Today, telehealth is being used to report patient metrics from the comfort of the patient’s own home, while remote teams act as coaches and counselors as they engage patients in their journey toward health.
- Expands access to care and reaches more patients
With an increasing physician shortage; telehealth can help stretch our provider networks in new ways to expand access to care. It can be used to reach patients in rural areas and outside the normal care delivery systems. It can be also implemented for midlevel patient education as well as physician diagnosis, reaching a variety of people in new ways.
- Improves clinical workflows and increases practice efficacy
Telehealth can increase clinical workflow efficiency. It can serve as a channel for quicker prioritization of care delivery, monitor each case, and improve communication by capturing, storing, and using patient data for better decision-making. The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) reports that telehealth is a feature of some of the best-performing practices in our nation.
5.Improves practice revenue
Telehealth is less time-consuming, both for the patient and provider. It can allow physicians to bill for uncompensated phone calls while also extending hours to capture more billable time. It can also improve the efficiency of practice and provide a competitive advantage, attracting and retaining more patients with new models of care.
- Reduces practice overhead
Telehealth applications are low-cost to implement as compared to the traditional hospital system. The cost of a telehealth visit is much less than traditional on-site visits. Typically, the average cost of an emergency room visit is $1,734 and the average cost of an on-site doctor’s office visit is $146. Conversely, a telehealth visit is only $79 on average. The University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UPMC) says they save $86.64 every time an online visit replaces an onsite visit.
- Cut down patient costs
Our patients spend a lot of money and time seeking healthcare. With a telehealth visit, the doctor comes to the patient on their phone, laptop, or another digital device. This can reduce the costs of travel, parking, childcare, and taking time off work. In some rural regions, patients travel overnight to reach specialists in more urban regions. Oregon Health and Science University saved their patients $6.4 million annually in travel costs by implementing a telemedicine program. One UPMC patient survey showed that 40% of their patients said if they did not have access to a virtual visit, they would skip treatment because of the burden of excessive travel to their facilities.
- Improves healthcare quality
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) says that telehealth improves healthcare quality, particularly in rural areas. The main reason behind this is the technology that can improve the service delivery and treatment of acute conditions. It is also being used to divert unnecessary ER visits. It also improves the accessibility of receiving treatment by allowing patients to take care without traveling long distances.
9. Primary Care and Chronic Condition Management
Regular visits with primary care consultants such as those specializing in family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics, are essential to your family’s health. Telehealth makes it easy to connect with a doctor or nurse practitioner. Some systems are set up so that new patients can get an appointment with the next available practitioner, which can save time.
- Improves patient satisfaction
Patient satisfaction is a key performance indicator of telehealth. A patient survey from the nationwide chain of CVS Minute Clinics reported up to a 99% satisfaction score with their telehealth visit. Virtual visits are much easier to fit into the busy schedule.
Thus, it is proven that from patients to doctors, the advantages of telehealth are far-reaching and only increasing in scope. It is an efficient and effective application for improving health care access and outcomes.
