Aug 19
2020
No Surprise: Most Healthcare Technology Conversations About COVID-19 Revolve Around The Adoption of Telehealth
By Jeff Fallon, chairman and CEO, eVideon Healthcare.
Hospitals are changing their approach to patient care as a result of COVID-19. Though this may seem obvious, most healthcare technology conversations about COVID-19 revolve around the adoption of telehealth.
While hospitals are still in varying stages of adopting the technology, even conservative estimates show increases around 65% since before the pandemic. Surely that figure will grow to be much higher.
But healthcare’s technological revolution goes well beyond telehealth. Years ago, hospitals (sometimes unwittingly) entered the first major technology overhaul with the mandatory adoption of EHRs. While opinions differ on the ROI of that massive investment of time and money, there’s no denying EHRs completely transformed healthcare and established a new source of information for hospitals.
EHRs created more than just a new medical record; they threw open new potential to connect an ocean of wonderful but siloed technologies in a way that could transform the future of hospitals everywhere.
I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say now that telehealth and other digital health solutions will transform healthcare in a similarly large way. While patients can now speak to a doctor from their homes, the openness and willingness in the industry to change the way we look at how we connect patients to providers (not to mention families when in isolation, hospital services, and education) carries more potential than just visiting a doctor from home. Similar to how EHRs were considered just beginning years ago, telehealth is just beginning now.