Telehealth Visits And 5 Reasons Why They Should Be Prioritized

We are now in the 3rd year of the officially declared pandemic, COVID-19. People were devastated by its effects of it. We were all suffocating and found it very difficult to adapt to the situation, isn’t it right?

But eventually, we got out and found our peace with it. Many social media platforms and healthcare workers provided us with plenty of choices which by using saved our lives from the spreading of the deadly infection. 

The Healthcare industry emerged with many choices. Many healthcare software was already there in the market but only the pandemic could open our eyes to see and start benefiting from them.

Telehealth is such a platform that helped millions of people to connect with healthcare service providers during the pandemic and continues to provide service till now and will in the future for sure.

So, What Is Telehealth Exactly?

As we all know, healthcare these days are very much digitalized. Telehealth bridges the gaps between healthcare providers and patients. The majority of the services are automated so that both the providers and the patients benefit from their use.

Telehealth services open many ways of access to healthcare delivery. the term telehealth refers to the healthcare services provided through virtual means.

This allows one to reach and communicate with their healthcare providers safely and quickly by using simple telecommunication techniques. Such as telephonic chats, live video calls, health apps, remote patient monitoring, etc.

Telehealth also includes features like mobile healthcare applications, audio-only visits, live video calls, transferring of recorder videos/audios, e-visits, case-based teleconferencing, and remote patient monitoring.

Benefits Of Telehealth Visits To Healthcare Providers

Due to the pandemic, the healthcare service providers were forced to face some challenges in delivering good quality care to their patients and also protecting and supporting their personnel.

Those challenges made way for telehealth to shine brighter in the crowd. And we are sure that telehealth is not going anywhere. There is a permanent spot for telehealth in the future with its ability to provide a high level of medical care in numerous situations.

There are many reasons why healthcare providers must offer telehealth visits. We are here to discuss the top 5 among them. Let’s jump into the points.

1. Improves patient outcomes

Telehealth reduces the gap between patients and the care they get even if they cannot go to a hospital/clinic in person. Especially for patients with chronic conditions and other health-compromised patients.

During the pandemic, people could not come outside. Imagine what would have been the situation for badly ill people? Telehealth services rescued them. Using telehealth proved to be effective in lowering the risk of infection.

Telehealth uses many services/platforms to constantly check on patients and thus avoiding future complications and emergencies.

Using telehealth opens the door to many possibilities for physicians. They will be able to explain to patients about their treatment plans. As we said earlier the digital tools allow the doctors to offer supple and one-to-one direct communication to the patients. This in turn can improve patient satisfaction.

2. Cuts down healthcare costs

If you wonder how telehealth helps providers in reducing the costs incurred by them, you should try using it so that you can experience it in person. 

Telemedicine or telehealth helps in reducing the operating costs and increases the utilization of resources to the maximum, at the same time while allowing a stretch in hours of operation to meet the needs of your patients, in a better way.

The overhead costs you get when you visit patients in person will be reduced or avoided sometimes by delivering care using telehealth. It can reduce costs in various departments such as pediatric medicine, dermatology, cardiology, etc.

Adding telehealth will be favorable for your hospital with its easy implementation, cost reduction, and financial benefits.

3. Increased patient engagement

The basic advantage of telehealth is that it provides easy access to medical services. This alone can increase its preference among patients. This creates ways for good patient adherence, the success of treatments, and hospital or clinical promotion.

Factors like easy access, close or remote monitoring, shorter waiting hours, etc, can be taken as proven drives for patient engagement.

Monitoring behavioral/mental health becomes a great challenge for both the physician and the caretaker of patients. This comes in handy when behavioral health is collided with telehealth by the providers. Telehealth uses many means to bridge the gap between doctors and their patients. 

This ensures immediate care delivery for reducing depressive symptoms for those who need assistance for their mental wellbeing.

Virtual healthcare which is one of the components of telehealth can be a correct approach to increase patient engagement and maintain it continuously. When you keep a patient happy, they won’t go to another provider, for sure.

4. Access to healthcare- made easy

Ah now, this is the basic foundation advantage of telehealth. Who doesn’t like to just sit at home, relax and make one’s medical appointments and get services available at their doorstep?

They prefer digital reach to traditional in-patient visits. Booking appointments, avoiding the crowded waiting room, and even visiting doctors virtually are made possible by telehealth. Telemedicine allows appointment bookings and easy patient scheduling.

Patient Portals allow the patients to book appointments by themselves, send secure messages to the providers, request prescription refills, etc.

5. Increase chances of collaboration

There will be nothing possible by any means of communication. It is very important to healthcare organizations. Constant communication between patient-oriented functions and diagnostic facilities is crucial and very important. This communication helps in attaining fast and direct healthcare measures.

Giving faster treatment and therapies helps patients to recover faster and increases their satisfaction. This in turn promotes their well-being. Virtual visits allow physicians to invite consulting physicians easily to join in the visits and ask for second opinions and additional suggestions. 

Easy access to seminars, conferences, training, etc, offered by digital platforms can help the providers to reduce their time, cost, and effort. Thus supporting the medical education provided by your healthcare organization.

Final say

Just one article cannot cover the vastness of telehealth services. Telehealth ensures the safety and availability of medical services easily to the people in need.

Are you in need of telehealth services? Even if you are not, do check Vozo’s telehealth services which can transform your practice’s efficiency from what’s now to what you think is impossible to achieve.

Our telehealth solutions are the smart choice for delivering care remotely. You can schedule and conduct virtual visits directly from your EHR without any additional software. 

Our HIPAA-compliant, easy-to-use video visits are specially designed for primary care physicians and specialists that let you provide immediate patients care and easy patient engagement through chat and secure messages. 

Visit us now for more details. We do provide many other healthcare software and services. Contact us now.

“Let’s make your practice reach out without any barriers, together”