What does better telehealth look like from a provider? I'm not sure the question can be answered until we know our starting point and desired destination. 

This is from an article that covered a recent panel discussion on the topic at HIMSS21

FTA

"Everyone had a similar experience during the early days of COVID. We all rushed into digital, and now we are watching and looking at the trends and seeing a drop-off in utilization across a lot of health systems," Tom Kiesau, director and digital leader of the Chartis Group, said at HIMSS21. 

The panelists admitted that, at the start of the pandemic, the digital health strategy was often not unified, creating issues. 

"...then you also created this fragmented environment and inefficient workflows and inconsistencies from a support standpoint. So over this last year we got a lot smarter. We've all gotten a lot smarter, and so we consolidated more of a single platform."

"We like to say technology is the easy part of this, and the hard part is operation culture and overall management support and sponsorship. Culture doesn’t change overnight, culture doesn’t change in a year," Dr. Nick Patel, chief digital officer at Prima Health

“The clunky experience, in primary care especially, is not intuitive to any consumer used to using any digital platforms," Aaron Martin executive VP and chief digital officer at Providence, said. "When we first launched it, because we had to, especially these zoom visits, you would have to call to make an appointment for a virtual visit, which is absurd. Most other hospitals were in the same situation. So, not surprisingly, after we got out of that emergency, patients were like, 'This is ridiculous. If I have to make a phone call, I’m going to go to the doctor's office.' It’s not a pure digital transaction.”

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We all know we can do better, what does better look like? I didn't hear it from the reporting on this panel discussion. I was hoping to, but I didn't find it in the article. What do you think?

#healthcare #healthIT #telehealth #cio #cmio #chime #himss

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/health-systems-see-dip-telehealth-use-after-covid-19-strikes-tech-here-stay