5 Reasons Your In-House Telemedicine Program Is Likely to Fail

With use growing annually, telemedicine is no fad. In a Foley & Lardner LLP survey, 90 percent of healthcare executives said they were planning to develop or implement a telemedicine program. About 89 percent expect telehealth to transform U.S. healthcare.

Healthcare organizations are expanding service offerings and improving patient care with telemedicine. But to ensure telemedicine brings value to both patients and providers, you must consider much more than equipment.

Make even one of these 5 planning mistakes, and your telemedicine program will suffer.

Mistake #1

Focusing too much on technology

Technology doesn't provide the service. It enables the service. The cart, PC, tablet and/or smartphone allow physicians to connect with patients so that they can provide quality care.

A successful telemedicine program should focus on designing and optimizing patient-centric workflows. Technology serves as one—but not the only—piece of the puzzle.

Mistake #2

Treating performance measurement as an afterthought

Healthcare executives measure telemedicine ROI in unique ways, including:

Improved throughput
Travel time saved
(for patient and physician)
Reduction in wait time

Reduction in patient transfers
Reduction in door-to-needle times

To ensure solid ROI, you must identify actionable performance measures from the start. Thorough performance measurement allows you to determine more easily and accurately which telemedicine aspects improve patient outcomes and operational efficiency. Make needed adjustments early to avoid failure.

Mistake #3

Inability to scale

A hospital may start with telemedicine in the emergency department and expand services to other departments later. Or, it may merge with another health system with dozens of locations that can’t offer every specialty. No matter what direction the growth, the telemedicine program must be able to scale up and out to adapt.

Centralized telemedicine program management allows for scale and eliminates expansion-slowing silos. However, the person in charge of program management must have change management planning expertise. Expanding programs falter when the telemedicine champion lacks the experience to manage a large-scale project.

Mistake #4

Lack of planning

A telemedicine program touches virtually every department in a healthcare organization. Without optimized program management and workflow, the telemedicine project will fall apart.

Large-scale implementations require advanced, healthcare-specific project management experience. Effective program management and workflow involves clinicians, IT, scheduling, security, privileging, documentation, training and many other elements.

Mistake #5

Lack of telemedicine expertise

Hospitals know how to serve patients. Implementing a telemedicine program requires specialized resources few healthcare organizations have.

Launching a program without qualified staff can negatively affect patient care—not what hospitals want. If a neurologist needs to evaluate a stroke patient's CT scans but can't log into the telemedicine system, that patient's outcome may suffer.

A successful telemedicine program requires technical and operational experience to match a hospital's clinical excellence. Seek out external telemedicine pros to implement and manage your telemedicine program to ensure long-term success.