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  Today in health, it zoom's Head of Healthcare Talks, the future of telemedicine. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in Health IT at channel dedicated to keeping health IT staff current and engaged. Have you signed up for CliffNotes yet? We designed it for you.

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Subscribe on our website, as I said, and while you're at it, have a friend sign up and you can start the discussion on the right foot. Alright, the story is from Healthcare IT News, Zoom's, head of Healthcare Talk's, future of telemedicine. Let me give you a couple of the excerpts. Recent research found that 72% of survey respondents want to attend healthcare appointments, both virtually and in person post pandemic, demonstrating the clear need for telehealth as an option for this hybrid approach for healthcare.

Yes, there will always be a need to provide in-person care, surgical procedures, imaging. Hands-on procedures, that's all gonna require office visits. However, the opportunity for telemedicine is tremendous and physicians should consider a virtual first mentality to support the convenience and safety of the patient.

Some forms of medical care can easily be managed over a virtual platform, and by continuing to be available virtually providers can reach new audiences regularly, track existing ones, and even grow stronger patient provider. Relationships. Next question. In your recent study, the clear majority of consumers want both virtual and in-person care.

This seems to show the need for telehealth as an option for a hybrid approach to healthcare. What will this hybrid look like more specifically? I. and her answer, we will see this hybrid approach combine the best of both the physical and digital world to offer an incredible experience. Generally, we'll see more primary consultation conducted via virtual platforms.

With providers then asking patients to come in or engage with a specialist either remotely or in person as needed. This provides a greater number of patients with a greater level of convenience because of the pandemic. There also has been a heightened awareness and preference to manage post acute care and chronic conditions.

At home, we'll likely see more outpatient care or physical rehab programs conducted over video calls for patients who have recently undergone. Surgery and are resting at home. New hybrid experiences also will improve information sharing and precision among doctors in their respective fields rather than waiting for hours across time zones for emails to be read and sent about a specific case.

Video conferencing can allow doctors that are physically in a room examining a patient to digitally share information. With consultants or experienced professionals outside of the room or even in other parts of the world in real time. Additionally, no longer do smaller hospitals or doctor offices have to solely rely on experts in or near the local community.

The talent pool for a given procedure or evaluation vastly expands. When video conferencing is a part of the equation. Couple more questions in here. While telehealth has indeed been very successful amid the pandemic, some experts have questions. Its broader use as the industry returns to in-person care.

She goes on to talk about this. Yes, a great deal of the population lacks I. The accessibility to healthcare in the same way that people in affluent and urban areas often have urban dwellers generally come across greater number of doctor offices, specialized care facilities and treatment options, whereas those on the outskirts or those without reliable transportation have limited choices in when and who they will see as medical issues arise.

The evolution of telehealth. And its swift adoption during the pandemic gave many communities access to doctors and other medical professionals that they normally wouldn't be able to see. I'm gonna move down a little bit in here. Now here's interesting comment. Lastly, and conversely, many physicians need to consider the increased competition threatening their patient population by not prioritizing digital health solutions between direct to consumer telehealth apps being developed daily and retail health becoming more prevalent.

There is a significant risk in not offering virtual care. Doctors and other providers could lose their patients and other companies and practices that are ahead of them in the curve. A lot of interesting stuff in this article, in this conversation with the head of Zoom's healthcare infrastructure, and it just dawned on me, I didn't give you her name.

Her name is Heidi West. She's the head of healthcare for Zoom. What's the so what on this? Well, you know, I, I feel like I say this pretty often, but Telehealth is here to stay, but where is it here to stay? And I thought she gave some really good examples of where it's going to take off. It's obviously gonna take off in the

Uh, behavioral health and mental health capacities. Clearly the numbers would indicate that in psychiatry, psychotherapy and those kinds of things, online therapy, it is a big winner through the pandemic and that will continue post pandemic. I. But she notes a couple of others in this article. She touches on nutritionists and dermatologists being good candidates for this as well.

She touches on chronic conditions at the home and went on to say that we're likely to see more outpatient care and physical rehab programs conducted over video calls for patients. Who have recently undergone surgery and are resting at home. And I think that's another case. And she also talks about hybrid experiences, some in person, some remote.

Uh, I bring those up to say that is what we are working on right now. My guess is you're gonna take your lead from the physicians in, the clinicians, the physicians are gonna be coming to you. My guess is physicians right now. Are coming to you with a lot of different opportunities. I would create a governance process around this, a governance process to look at all the different opportunities for telehealth and how it can be applied.

The basic technology should be in place. You should be able to schedule an appointment. You should be able to do follow up. You should be able to do training and appointment reminders. You should be able to establish that video link with the patient in a very seamless way. It should not be difficult. You should not have a lot of drop calls.

There should be ways to capture the information, move it into the EMR, and to facilitate the sharing of information across the entire continuum of care. Those are the basics. It should have that in place. The CIS team should have that in place as well. Now that you have that in place, it is time to vet the different opportunities that are out there.

You're not gonna be able to do them all at once, but. If you prioritize the right ones first, you're gonna be able to move through these in a pretty rapid fashion. We prove that during the pandemic we can move fast. When we have focus, governance provides the focus. That's all for today. If you know of someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note.

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