Multiple economic sectors are going either fully or partially digital, especially in the era of COVID-19. This includes the healthcare industry, which increasingly delivers its services to patients over the internet – for a variety of reasons such as to streamline services, increase access to rural and vulnerable populations, cut costs and save lives by preventing infections.
Let’s explore the top benefits of telehealth for patients and providers.
Remote Monitoring
Many chronic conditions require, appropriately, chronic care. This includes, for example, regularly checking blood sugar for diabetics or monitoring heart rates of patients with heart conditions.
Whereas in a previous time these patients would have to travel to the doctor and perform lab tests in these facilities in-person to get check-ups on their statuses, telehealth enables the monitoring of these biomarkers from afar in real-time, opening up a wide array of opportunities to optimize care.
Improved Workflows
Managing workflows in healthcare facilities is much easier with telehealth, which enables the digital automation of many of the standard procedures of care.
The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) says in its report that the best-performing medical clinics are those that rely on technology like telehealth services to streamline care.
Increased Revenue
Of course, as much as healthcare is about delivering better health outcomes to patients, it is also a business. As such, profit is a concern. The research is clear that telehealth has the potential to dramatically increase revenue by optimizing workflows and cutting down on overhead expenses, which often eat up a large number of resources and chip away at a practice’s bottom line.
Reduced Patient Cost
While increasing the profitability of healthcare providers, telehealth simultaneously reduces patient costs. This includes the financial losses incurred from taking time away from work to visit the doctor, finding childcare, travel expenses, and paying for parking at doctors’ offices – all of which can add up when taken together.
Higher Patient Satisfaction
Finally, patients report higher rates of satisfaction with their healthcare services when they are conducted digitally. As many as 9 out of 10 respondents in several studies have reported a high degree of satisfaction following telehealth visits.
For all of these reasons and more, we can expect telehealth to become a mainstay feature of the healthcare industry moving forward.