By Jon Pearce, CEO and Co-Founder of Zipnosis
Twitter: @Zipnosis
More and more, health systems are looking to telemedicine and virtual care technology to improve access by connecting patients with clinicians. It’s no secret that providing care online is critical to remaining competitive and meeting patient demand. With online healthcare hitting the mainstream, health systems are moving faster than ever into the direct to consumer market. Sounds easy, right?
Don’t Get Stuck with Betamax
Let’s take a walk down memory lane to the early 80s. Video was busy killing the radio star, and two competing technologies were vying to be the king of video: VHS and Betamax. Ultimately, VHS won the videotape format wars, and Betamax technology (and tapes) disappeared from store shelves. The people who purchased Beta machines and video libraries were left with a choice: forgo video entirely until the next big technological advance comes along or purchase a whole new system and video library.
There was no real way for consumers in the post-disco era to hedge their bets about video technology. VHS and Beta were both expensive new technologies and were wholly incompatible. Fortunately, health systems moving into online care aren’t in the same boat.
Telemedicine is Today; What’s Tomorrow?
Traditional telemedicine tools, including video consultations, have been around since the 60’s, though they’ve only been available to patients for the past 10 years or so. Those tools definitely have their place. They enable patients and providers to connect in real time and are typically embraced by today’s high-value patients – people over 65 and those with chronic conditions. A recent Deloitte survey showed that those high value patients were significantly more likely to only use digital health tools to connect with their regular healthcare provider. But less than ⅓ of millennials would put the same restrictions around online care.
Similarly, baby boomers and the older members of generation X are more inclined to want a real-time, personal interaction with a healthcare provider. Overall, younger generations are less interested in a personal interaction and more interested in making the whole healthcare experience quicker and more efficient. That means that the high value patients of tomorrow aren’t as interested in video consultations or phone calls with their providers. So, how is a health system supposed to meet the needs of today’s patients and tomorrow’s?
Where do We Go from Here?
The optimal option for health systems looking to make a safe online healthcare bet is combining traditional telemedicine with transformative virtual care technology. This pairing gives health systems and their patients the best of both worlds: personal interaction through a real-time consultation and efficient virtual care. Working together, these access points create a digital “front door,” making it easy for health systems to provide the care individual patients need, when and how they need it.
Just like investing in a Beta machine was a safe bet for 1980 (it was developed by Sony, after all), investing in a traditional telemedicine solution alone is a safe bet today. It means you’ll be able to effectively help today’s patients with today’s needs. But true safety doesn’t lie exclusively in what consumers want right now – the safest choice is preparing for what they’ll want tomorrow, too.
This article was originally published on Zipnosis and is republished here with permission.