Telemedicine has developed dramatically over the past few years, and care providers have come to comprehend the profound ways in which it can enhance patient care. With this evolution has also come the increased sophistication of telemedicine practitioners. Doctors, administrators and nurses now desire easier integration, support for multiple specialties on a single comprehensive platform, clinical adaptability and configurability, and robust data collection and analytics.
Needed Specialty‐specific Telemedicine Software:
With changing times healthcare providers are looking further away from proprietary hardware and networks that have been used since the early generations of telemedicine technology. They now demand affordable and lithe solutions. Effective telemedicine programs are now being progressively more powered by off‐the‐shelf PC components, standard, low-cost cameras and promising networking standards. These easy-to-use, standardized products permit the care providers to opt for the most relevant end‐point for the clinical requirements; whether it be a high-performance cart, a PC or a cellular device such as an iPad, Android or Surface tablet. Care providers are also now increasingly seeking specialty‐specific telemedicine software applications that are deployable and easily accessible across these commodity hardware devices using open networks.
The Era of Innovative Software Platforms:
Healthcare systems are now on the lookout for enterprise‐wide telemedicine solutions that can extend to support multiple service lines and an assortment of delivery models, all on one common platform. Just as smartphones have made the old keypad phone obsolete owing to their technological capabilities, providers want a single platform to contain all their telemedicine requirements. They expect a simple, powerful solution that helps varied telemedicine requirements across the continuum of care and works wherever it is needed, on the devices of their choice. These platforms have already started production and are being designed with an open architecture, offering the comfort of plug‐and‐play connectivity with specific, interoperable components such as high-quality peripherals.
Better Clinical Apps for Physicians:
The keys to prosperous patient engagement are exceptional for each physician. To reconstruct the bedside knowledge for doctors and patients, telemedicine solutions require to support individual physician predilections. Concurrently, they should assist healthcare organizations in their mission to regulate treatment protocols. To address these needs, telemedicine solutions are transforming into more flexible, providing physicians with the flexibility to identify how information is displayed and utilized, all within the boundaries of the standard clinical procedures defined by the provider organization.
Built‐in EMR Integration:
Today most telemedicine networks include providers using different EMR systems, patient information needs to flow freely as needed. It is important to note that during a telemedicine consultation the applicable patient data should be displayed seamlessly to both the clinician at the point of care and also to the remote specialist, even though they are using different EMR. As telemedicine expands throughout the continuum of healthcare distribution, integration with EMR systems is quickly becoming a baseline expectation.
Data Analytics:
As the practice of telemedicine develops, providers are seeing that successful programs do not take a set‐it‐and‐forget‐it approach. Effective program management requires clinical, financial and usage data, covering a wide spectrum from personal consultations and physicians to setting‐precise metrics and program‐wide trends. Through first‐generation telemedicine systems, telemedicine program managers have been meticulously gathering this data manually but now increasingly expect this information to be readily available in contemporary systems.
As the caregiver’s expectations of telemedicine technologies are shifting rapidly, with increasing focus on patient engagement and enhanced outcomes, providers are time after time seeking telemedicine solutions that do much more than merely enable consultations, but alongside truly augment clinical effectiveness and overall program management. With each passing day the world shifts away from propriety programs and look ahead towards innovative life-changing capabilities.
