Telehealth ROI: Operationalizing the New Normal

Besides the lifesaving contribution of telemedicine, there is a practical, financial benefit as well. Hospital providers are under constant budget pressures these days.

Operationalizing telehealth requires further integration into the health care system by re-examining in-place systems and processes to see where telehealth can provide benefits in terms of better patient outcomes, alleviating physician staff shortages, and providing a safe environment for staff and patients. It also involves looking at existing systems to identify where equipment can be repurposed to support telehealth services to help control budget expenditures.

Achieving better ROI and patient outcomes can be accomplished by surveying where equipment can be repurposed to support telehealth services. For example, in response to the increase in COVID-related patients, Banner Health, a nonprofit health system, worked closely with Intel and the telehealth technology company VeeMed to begin transforming nearly 1,000 in-room televisions into virtual care endpoints.