3 Telehealth DOs and DON’Ts for Healthcare CEOs

Based on the Kano model, the reality of innovation is that features that once were a “delighter” (remember the first power windows in cars?) over time in the eyes of the consumer become “table stakes”.

The same holds true for telehealth — in the 1990s and 2000s academic medical centers used telehealth to provide easier access to their specialty care services to rural populations. More health systems jumped on board in the 2010s and the Covid-19 health crisis catapulted all of us into the telehealth age.

But many healthcare leaders dismissed telehealth merely as a “stop gap” measure for Covid, not as the critical delighter for the modern healthcare consumers that it has evolved to.

As the industry (and its leaders) are now chasing the sweet temptations (and value) of AI, it is important that Healthcare CEOs turn their attention to the “value at hand” vs. giving in to the seduction of a new technology and the pressure of “me too” adoption.

In the eyes of many healthcare consumers, Telehealth is no longer merely a “delighter” — it has become table stakes and in this Telehealth Tuesday article I lay out the three things CEOs should and should not be doing.

Side note: Telehealth is not just about live video visits. It includes various forms of virtual care services and in totality they are becoming more and more critical to drive patient engagement and health outcomes.

DO treat Telehealth as an alternative care delivery modality.

One of the most important mindset shifts for healthcare leaders is to fully embrace that telehealth is unlike any other organizational change they have experienced or led in the past. In its effect on the organization, even the digitization of the medical record pales in comparison.

The good news is that telehealth, by far, does not have to be in any shape or form as painful as the introduction and integration of an EHR system. Because first and foremost telehealth is NOT about the integration of a technology.

Side note: The purpose of early EHRs was to maximize billing charges. The purpose of telehealth used correctly is to facilitate an extraordinary patient-clinician experience. Big difference!

First and foremost, telehealth is about improving, expanding the delivery of care.

At its essence, telehealth is simply delivering care at a distance. It is a clinical tool that clinicians can use at their discretion. And it’s about building and integrating a parallel set of care delivery processes that uses communications technology — as a tool.

DO think of Telehealth as a multidisciplinary effort

Secondly, once Telehealth is understood as a new care delivery modality — complementary to in-person care — it becomes obvious that EVERYONE in the organization will need to be involved. From scheduling to billing, from nursing to prescriptions, from the helpdesk to compliance and marketing.

To build a set of successful Telehealth processes, it takes everyone in your organization to participate in the effort, including the definition of new workflows, such as the 7 new telehealth workflows for video visits that include scheduling, onboarding, rooming, the visit, post visit, follow-up and billing.

DO leverage Telehealth to achieve your strategic objectives

Thirdly, in working with numerous healthcare leaders over the past decade, they all gained a key insight: that telehealth is a tactical tool that astute leaders can use to advance virtually ALL of their strategic objectives.

Today’s healthcare organizations typically structure their telehealth strategy around the six common pillars of service, quality, people, finance, growth, and community.

Telehealth offers numerous opportunities to create strategic success through better access, better outcomes, expanded geographic reach, reduced no shows, reduced stigma, increased patient engagement, reduced burnout, and more.

For more information see the “Seven Pillars of Telehealth Value”.

DON’T mistake Telehealth for a fad or stop-gap measure.

Telehealth, when it first came into widespread use in 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 health crisis, was seen by many as a stop-gap measure; an inferior method to delivering care that was still better than the alternative of no care.

Many organizations were not prepared for a large-scale use of telehealth and struggled to deliver quality experiences for patients and clinicians. Most so-called “telehealth” visits were conducted over the phone vs. the benefit of high-quality live video. Others, who had used telehealth prior to the start of the pandemic, quickly scaled their ability, some up to 5,000 virtual care visits a day.

By now it’s clear that Telehealth is here to stay. The toothpaste is not going back into the tube. The cat is out of the bag. The train has left the station. You get the idea.

Aside from numerous telehealth-only service providers (often lavishly promoted to patients by the patients’ health insurance), many services that initially focused on targeting self-insured employers are now switching to a “virtual first” model en masse.

Amazon is now offering virtual first visits through its acquisition of One Medical. Teladoc is heavily promoting its virtual visit service. And while Walmart, Walgreens, and other industry juggernauts have tried and failed, venture capital-funded startups targeting men’s health, women’s health, and weightloss are offering direct-to-consumer virtual only services that offer convenience and speed.

And who are those companies targeting? Your patients!

In addition, the aforementioned Modern Healthcare Consumer will not only be delighted by the availability of telehealth options — they’ll be expecting and demanding them very soon — from your clinicians!