Today in health, it tele-health grows and satisfaction, declines. What do you make of that? We discussed that today. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system. And creator of this week and health it a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged. VMware has been committed to our mission of providing relevant content to health it professionals. Since the start, they recently completed an executive study with MIT on the top healthcare trends, shaping it resilience.

Covering how the pandemic drove unique transformation in healthcare. This is just one of many resources they have for healthcare professionals. For this and several other great content pieces. Check out vmware.com/go/healthcare. All right. Here's today's story. JD power and associates. I did a study.

As they usually do every year. And this study is around tele-health satisfaction. Okay. And they came back and I already gave you a little sneak peek used to surging, but patient satisfaction with the service has declined. Let me give you a couple of excerpts from this article. JD power conducted a tele-health satisfaction study, looking at factors, including customer service, consultation, enrollment, and billing among direct to consumer and payer sponsored tele-health services more than 4,600 consumers who use telehealth services in the past year.

As the industry grows, it is critical to address these challenges said, James beam. A former guest of this week in health. It. Managing director of global healthcare intelligence at JD power in a statement. Services that ranked highest in terms of patient tele-health satisfaction among direct to consumer brands are Teladoc MD live. And my telemedicine.

Respectively among payers, the United healthcare ranked highest followed by Humana and Kaiser foundation health plan. Which were both tied for second. More than half of all customers reported using tele-health because of convenience, nearly half because of swift access to care and more than a third because of safety.

The highest usage of telehealth services in the past year was among generation Y and pre boomers. JD power found. But patient satisfaction with telehealth services has declined as pain points emerge. Apart from barriers like limited services and inconsistent care consumers also reported not being aware of costs while using tele-health confusing technology

and a lack of provider details.

Patients who said they are healthier, also reported a higher degree of satisfaction with their care and diagnosis than those who reported having poor health. JD power study is the latest among others. Looking into patient satisfaction and COVID-19 pandemic impact on tele-health in general, data has shown consistent similarities, such as increased demand for the service alongside.

Inconsistencies in delivery and spotty access to helpful information. All right. That's all from that story. Let me give you my, so what on this, as you know, after each one of these stories I do as, so what, which is, why do we care? Why are we. Talking about this subject.

When you see increases in satisfaction, declines. I start with the obvious question. What does that tell me and why? Is there something here that I need to deal with. So let's start with, what does it tell me? People are using tele-health regardless of the satisfaction rates. Why would that be the case?

What outside factor could be at work to drive people to tele-health. COVID fear probably in some cases, lower costs. In some cases that's probably true.

The physicians directing them to tele-health because it's better for them. That's probably more likely we know that physician directed tele-health is still the highest factor for using tele-health. There are probably still instances where tele-health may be the only option available. Quite frankly, the use of tele-health probably mirrors people's overall satisfaction with healthcare.

When you think about it, the satisfaction isn't that great, but what else are they going to do? There are no other options. Is there something I have to deal with. That's the next question I sort of look at here? Is there something I need to deal with? And of course there is. We are developing solutions that our families and friends are going to use.

So let's take a look at this. Friction is defined as the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another, any digital transaction, friction is the negative force, a user experiences that makes it hard for them to complete the transaction or gives them a reason to dislike the transaction.

What we need to do is identify the friction for the users of our telehealth solutions. This can be on the clinician side or the patient side. What keeps the connections from happening? What would a frictionless or friction-free transaction look like? What changes can we make in order to reduce one element of friction?

Each week over the next 52 weeks in our tele-health transactions.

Some of the friction is technology. Some is processing workflow and some is misaligned incentives. But let's talk about the technology for a minute. It should be easy. The technology should make it easy to find a path to a telehealth visit. It should be easy to schedule. It should be easy to connect. It should be easy to get support.

You get the picture

until it is easy. We're not done. When we're dealing with the consumer world, it has to be easy.

This is a higher level of expectation than we've ever had in health. It definitely than we've had in the past

however expectations are an opportunity for your organization to shine.

All right. That's all for today. If you know someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note.

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