Virtual health

The integration of telehealth or telemedicine initiatives in mainstream care delivery to provide complementary or substitute care – got a big boost from innovations in communication technology that has created more convenient, fast and affordable virtual interaction. Healthcare reform – participation in ACOs and rapid expansion of insured patient population under ACA – however, is making virtual health an important asset for hospitals to have as they define their strategy to transition to risk-based payment models.

Virtual health offers the potential to lower costs, reduce utilization, generate revenue and increase operational efficiency on the business side, while supporting care coordination and delivering better outcomes on the clinical side. Providing virtual visits and consults and deploying remote home and mobile monitoring, tele-home health and other virtual health offerings can benefit both patients and providers.

Services that offer convenience and cost and time savings will drive patient engagement and satisfaction, which will strengthen provider-patient relationships and establish loyalty. Innovator Hospitals that set up a secure infrastructure for clinicians to deliver care remotely will enable clinicians to be more efficient and make more informed clinical decisions in a timely manner, which increases quality of care and patient safety. Providing an environment that supports virtual health can also increase clinician satisfaction and loyalty, which is critical given continued nurse and physician shortages and growing patient populations.

With an experienced IT consulting partner, the Innovator Hospital can assess its organizational readiness for virtual health by defining success and establishing goals, building stakeholder support, understanding the demographics of its healthcare market, ensuring the privacy and security of patient information and developing capabilities to address regulatory and legal issues. By incorporating virtual health as part of its services and capabilities, the Innovator Hospital can fulfill the needs of patients and clinicians to receive and give quality care wherever and whenever it is needed – all the while reducing costs and improving topline growth.