Sustaining the Success of Telehealth - Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare

Telehealth is not a new concept—the industry has been considering it for many years. But a global pandemic has put telehealth at the forefront of patient care, and the industry is looking to the successes of early adopters for best practices, key takeaways, and lessons learned.

Patients enjoy improved access to care—and that access is responsive and timely. Rather than being told to come to the facility in two weeks for a problem they have now, they can receive more immediate care without the challenges of transportation and travel time. They also benefit from a lower cost of care without an on-site copay.

And with regard to chronic conditions, facilitated care helps enable remote patient monitoring for conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, or hypertension, which helps facilitators know when they “really have to get into the neighborhood and into the home,” Mihale says.