No one will be shocked to hear that technology is driving the future of care delivery or that staying current with healthcare technology is increasingly vital to organizational success. But you may be surprised at the role virtual care can play in your digital health strategy.
The Digital Health Ecosystem
Being successful in this brave, new, technology-fueled world means building a digital health ecosystem. Like an ecosystem in the natural world, all components should come together to create a seamless whole. Your digital ecosystem needs to support the overall goals of your healthcare organization, including enhanced patient access, continuity of care through EMR integration, simplifying billing and claims processes, easy patient visit scheduling, and superior patient experience through portal integration.
Having a clear digital health strategy that outlines the technologies you will employ and how they will work in concert to support the continuum of care is critical. It’s easy for health systems to become so focused the individual technology solutions, they can’t see the (digital) forest for the (virtual) trees. Without that strategy, they may not realize there’s a virtual care-shaped hole in their digital health ecosystem.
Virtual Care: The Missing Puzzle Piece
It seems myopic from today’s perspective, but virtual care was traditionally viewed as a siloed point on the care continuum. In the digital age, virtual care is a delivery channel that supports a large breadth of services – from low-acuity conditions to more complex services such as chronic care management, and from primary to specialty care.
Even better, virtual care complements other elements of the digital health ecosystem, making it stronger and more unified. Paired with ePrescribing, virtual care fosters convenient, complete treatment of a variety conditions. It can be used alongside traditional telemedicine video visits to reach more of your patient base. And, virtual care gets both patients and providers comfortable with online care, making it easier to accept digital health technology in higher-acuity situations.
Your Digital Health Strategy
Health systems need to keep pace with changing consumer needs and the shifting demands of the dynamic healthcare industry. According to research firm Gartner, 40% of primary care visits will be virtual by 2018. With direct-to-consumer telemedicine companies vying for patients and growing numbers of health systems launching virtual care solutions to meet growing patient demand, virtual care is a vital piece to your health system’s success and your overall digital health strategy. Are you ready?
