Standardizing Telehealth Training

Start with strategy. Ground it in policy. Make workflows real. Then train.

I was recently asked a thoughtful question based on a the collective insights of a group from about two dozen healthcare organizations:

“What strategies have you seen work well for standardizing telehealth training across diverse roles and high staff turnover?”

It’s a question that cuts to the heart of an all-too-common pain point.

Across the country, healthcare organizations are struggling to keep up with the demands of training new staff on telehealth. With roles ranging from schedulers to nurses, physicians to behavioral health therapists, frequent turnover across all professions, and (as of recent) frequently changing regulations leaders are understandably challenged by how to keep everyone well informed.

But let’s be clear: they don’t just want a better training program.

They want more consistency, higher confidence, and increased clarity — no matter who is involved in delivering care virtually, where the patient is, or which technology is used.

Leaders have the fiduciary responsibility to avoid scrambling or having to reinvent the wheel each time a new clinician comes on board or a new telehealth service launches. Those in charge are tired of patching together slide decks, tip sheets, and videos that don’t quite match how care actually should be delivered.

In short, organizations want and need standardized telehealth training that is:

• Easy to update to keep it current

• Adaptable across different care models (behavioral health to home? primary care to other clinics? crisis services to an ER?)

• Role-specific without being an unorganized mess (e.g., MAs don’t need to know about virtual exams)

• Grounded in organizational expectations, in standards — not personal guesswork by whoever is putting the training together.

So here’s the solution:

Telehealth training can’t be standardized until your telehealth delivery model is standardized.

Step One: What Are You Actually Doing?

Managers often ask: “What’s the best way to train staff on telehealth?”

But the right question is: “Have we clearly defined what we do with telehealth — and how we want it done?”

If you haven’t standardized your virtual care delivery system — your workflows, your policies, your technologies — then how can you expect standardized training?

Therefore, your first step is to unify your vision for telehealth. That means clearly articulating:

🎯 What we do — What is our Strategy?

The first key to standardized training is to create a comprehensive telehealth strategy — one that unites the many “flavors” of virtual care under one cohesive framework:

• The different types of telehealth modalities, including video visits, RPM, eConsults, etc.

• The different types of specialities from primary care and behavioral health to specialty and surgical consults.

• The timing of virtual care — scheduled vs. on-demand care

• The location of patients — at home vs. in-clinic vs. in other facilities

• And whether the virtual care delivered by your staff or contracted clinician

Without this unifying view, it’s impossible to train consistently—because every department ends up doing their own thing.

👓For more information see our article collection on the value and the structure of a Telehealth Strategy.

Step Two: What’s allowed and not allowed?

📜 The second pillar is an organization-wide telehealth policy.

A good policy describes “how to do it right” and “what not to do”. It may include

• Appropriate conduct on video visits (webside manners)

• Licensing, consent and other regulatory requirements

• Technology standards to adhere to (no more Facetime!)

• Clinical documentation standards for billing purposes

• Clinical guidelines and scope of practice

• etc.

A well-defined, comprehensive telehealth policy creates the guardrails that every role-specific training module can now readily reinforce.

👓For more information on Telehealth Policies see our two recent articles on the “Why Mature Healthcare Organizations Need a Purposeful Telehealth Policy” and “The Architecture of a Modern Telehealth Policy”

Step Three: How should we do it?

Finally, define the consistent telehealth workflows for the different variations of telehealth. For primary care visits (and most specialty care) to patients in home settings, we use our “Seven Thworfs” model: