Which Telehealth Technology is Best? Well that greatly depends on what you want to accomplish with it. Read on to find out more…

Why CIOs have been getting away with making poor decisions regarding the best solution for telehealth?

Telehealth services, whether your clinicians are providing them or whether you are outsourcing parts of your care delivery to a 3rd party, all require to select a vendor either for hardware, software, or service.

This article provides a nice overview of the various telehealth vendor types and describes the proper steps to select a vendor and, specifically, how to select and integrate a clinical telehealth services vendor.

Are you considering outsourcing telehealth to a vendor that provides the clinical expertise you need? Maybe a TelePsychiatrist or a TeleCriticalCare specialist?

Then this Quick Guide will give you some valuable pointers that can save you a lot of anguish and money.

What types of vendors do you need for telehealth?

Of course there is the technology — software, hardware.

Then there are clinical services you can outsource to – e.g., for TeleStroke and other TeleSpecialists, or employer-sponsored TeleUrgentCare or TelePrimaryCare.

And finally, there are partners that can take care of finding you the right staff, provide you with sound legal advice, and guide your growth and optimization with deep expertise.

Find out more how to select and engage those partners in this edition of Telehealth Tuesday.

Selecting a new telehealth vendor for doing your video visits can be a daunting exercise.

There are many aspects to consider from technical requirements to usability and the inevitable “featuritis” by which vendors try to stand out from the competition.

But what does really matter?

In this first of a multiple processes on the art and science of selecting a vendor, I will cover the first three steps.

As the saying goes in click-bait advertising — the first one may surprise you. 

As any handyman or mechanic will tell you, picking the right tool for the job is critical. And not only does the tool need to work well — it also needs to “handle” well.

In medicine the same also applies to surgery. One of the Mayo brothers‘ (of Mayo Clinic fame) genius approaches to surgery was to “invent” their own surgical tools.

But nowadays, the tools for clinicians such as the EHR or the video visit platform are selected *for* them. And most of the time, this selection was made without any input by a clinician.

If your organization is thinking about evaluating or selecting digital health technologies, take a look at these four steps to systematically gather up the most important requirements.

At the core of each health care practice lies its ability to deliver care well.

Diagnosis and Treatment are intricately linked to patient-physician visits and other communication.

Whereas “previously” patients were forced to come into the clinic, we are now (thankfully) living in a time where seeing your doctor over video “is a thing”.

But just like every surgeon needs innovative surgical instruments to achieve the best outcomes, so should every clinician have access to the best possible tool to communicate with their patients over video.

Yet many organizations have dismal solutions that are either not optimized for healthcare or are only partially creating a great patient experience.

It may be time to select a new video visit vendor and this article lays out some best practices.