Redefining the Patient & Provider Experience

As we emerge from the pandemic, healthcare providers are reassessing their telehealth needs, with a focus on platform consolidation, enterprise solutions and a streamlined experience for patients and clinicians. That means starting with the electronic health record (EHR). It seems clear by now that telehealth is here to stay, but where it lives and how much space it should occupy in our healthcare system remain hot topics of discussion. Predicting that widespread use is “inevitable,” proponents say it will make healthcare more efficient and improve the quality of care. “Once patients experience the benefits of this technology,” a prominent health IT expert has stated, “they will demand nothing less from their providers.” Those at the skeptical end of the spectrum including some of those same providers say this kind of assurance is premature. Pointing to an array of potential pitfalls including clinical quality and patient safety, fraud risk, and administrative burden, they caution that the technology intended to improve our lives may actually erode the quality of care and disrupt provider-patient relationships. If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it is. The sound bites and talking points above, some more than a decade old, refer not to telehealth but to electronic health records. Google it and see for yourself: Even a quick skim of the headlines and journal articles from the meaningful use era will surface some uncanny parallels to today’s discussions about the future of telehealth.

One conclusion might be that healthcare is slow to embrace any new technology, and here we go again. On the other hand, what a difference a decade makes. Technological progress in any industry is cumulative, and the fact that the EHR did prove inevitable has laid the groundwork for the next phase of telehealth. The EHR pulled healthcare into the digital age, and now, as telehealth takes its place alongside the EHR in healthcare’s digital infrastructure, the two technologies are poised to redefine what’s possible for patients and providers.