Challenges to Growing Telehealth Utilization | Clear Arch Health Surveys Care Providers

With its ability to address numerous issues for today’s healthcare providers – from the need to reduce readmissions, engage patient populations, address long-term chronic care, and make care more accessible – telehealth represents one of the most promising technology solutions in the healthcare space.

However, the vast majority of healthcare providers have not been able to incorporate telehealth technologies – despite the desire to do so.

To better understand the pain points and roadblocks involved in using telehealth technology solutions, Clear Arch Health reached out to healthcare providers with a comprehensive survey.

The results demonstrate that while the benefits of using telehealth are very clear to those in the provider space, the capability to invest in a new program or expand an existing one has significant challenges – from fiscal difficulties to personnel shortages.

Examining the results affords the opportunity to understand how those challenges can be addressed by products on the market today.

The Survey: Results Support Telehealth

The primary concerns among healthcare provider participants fell among five topic areas:

  1. Increasing patient load
  2. Retaining trained nursing staff
  3. Readmission penalties
  4. Patient satisfaction rates
  5. Increasing operating costs.

More than 80 percent of the participants felt “increasing operating costs” was the biggest concern, followed by “retaining trained nursing staff” and “patient satisfaction rates.”

When asked follow-up questions related to technology and its ability to help address the major areas of concern, healthcare providers offered the following feedback: While only 29 percent of respondents reported using technologies like remote patient monitoring (RPM) to ease the burden of the issues expressed in major areas of concern, more than 85 percent of respondents felt RPM could benefit their patients in multiple ways.

The results of the survey is underscored by other studies, which indicate technology – and telehealth specifically – has the potential to

  1. Reduce healthcare costs
  2. Provide much needed support to staff
  3. Increase patient satisfaction for an aging patient population

Growing Telehealth Utilization – and Challenges to Address

The data collected by this survey reflect the healthcare providers’ desire to utilize technology to

  1. More fully understand patient conditions and status
  2. Offer ongoing care to their patients outside the traditional clinical setting
  3. Provide their patients with supplementary tools

To address these needs, this poster will explore how new consumer-facing technology solutions are providing patients with the benefits of remote patient monitoring with video visits or the ability to provide customized education related to specific disease states.

Following the reimbursable period, patients have the opportunity to keep the telehealth equipment and shift to monitoring their own vital signs – allowing healthcare providers to essentially step out of the clinical care process – while giving patients the tools they need to engage more fully in their own care in the long-term.

In addition, a medical alert can be incorporated, which allows patients to access emergency help if and when they need it – a key feature for patients living outside the traditional clinical care environment.

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