Gathering the Requirements To Select a New Video Visit Vendor

Clinician and Staff UX

Undoubtedly the clinicians and staff involved in the care (e.g., the nurse preparing the patients video visit or the staff involved in communicating with the patients where to “find” their clinician’s video room) are the ones that have to interact with the solution the most.

Thus it should only be fair (and common sense) that clinicians should be able to provide their input as to what they think an ideal user experience should be like for them.

Just like the actual process of in-person care varies greatly from clinician to clinician once that exam door closes, telehealth, too, should afford the clinicians the ability to “personalize” the visit experience for their patients and for themselves.

For example, some clinicians may want to share online resources with the patients. Others like to review any test results with the patient, by looking at the same screen with the results. Others may want to send the patient a file, or the link to a video to watch later.

By moving the patient-physician interaction to the digital realm, suddenly many more opportunities are opening up. But since clinicians are rarely asked what they want but are rather told what they can do, we are missing out on the opportunity to redesign the care delivery process for the online world that may clinically be even better than in person.

Therefore, when you are collecting the requirements for a new video visit vendor, make sure to sit down with clinicians and staff to ask: “In an ideal world, what would the experience of doing a video visit look like?”

Patient and Caregiver UX

The same challenge of not representing “the voice of the user” also exists, even more so, for the patient and their caregiver.

In healthcare, we often rely blindly on the solution vendor to have figured out the whole patient experience, but similar to not involving clinicians, many vendors design solutions around how they, as a patient, would want to use the system.

While it should actually be the responsibility of the vendor, as a healthcare organization you also have the obligation to create an experience for the patient that makes them engaged in their care, that builds trust, that alleviates concerns and that overcomes barriers caused by a low level of digital literacy.

The best practice to identify the desired user experience for patients (and their caregivers) is to tap into patient focus groups by inviting their feedback on what you (and your clinicians) feel would be a great experience.

Workflows

Ultimately all this “user experience” information you collect needs to culminate in the high-level design of the various workflows. At the core of video visits for care delivery, there are 7 Telehealth Workflows that you can read more about in my article on the “7 Thworfs”.

But beyond the core workflows of delivering care (including scheduling, rooming, and post-visit activities) there are also other workflows that may need to be supported, such as adding new clinicians, new locations, or conducting a Telehealth TechCheck for a patient new to telehealth.

Technical Requirements

Last but certainly not least are the technical requirements oftentimes stipulated by the IT team.

Within the IT domain there are certain technical standards that vendor solutions need to meet, mostly regarding security and compliance with regulations, but also other aspects such as maintainability and scalability. This is where IT can better than anyone else evaluate the nonobvious, underlying capabilities of a vendor solution.

One note of caution: Oftentimes IT staff are quick to demand integration and they will oftentimes also “push” for using solutions of vendors they already hold a relationship with (e.g., the EHR vendor’s embedded telehealth features). Of course it is understandable that IT is motivated to keep their number of vendors small; but the efficiency gained within the IT department should never come at the expense of the clinicians or patients user experience.

Ready to start looking at Vendors

Now armed with a set of systematically developed requirements

• Problems to solve & Vision to fulfill

• User Experience to create for Clinicians, Patients, Staff, and Caregivers

• Workflows to support

• Technical requirements to meet

you can now set out to start evaluating various solutions against these requirements.

Have you used patient focus groups to get their input on any digital health tools? What about clinicians, how are you getting their input? Connect with me to let me know.