Pandemic pushes telehealth to top IT concerns

Credit Office of Connected Care - Veterans Affairs

PARCA eNews – Sept. 18, 2020 – COVID-19 exacerbates technology challenges for healthcare organizations, pushingTelehealth functionality and capacity to the top of the list medical executives face, according to a KLAS survey conducted in September.

The survey found that 8 of 19 executives named solving telehealth problems as their number one problem during the early stages of the pandemic. Since then, nearly all of the executives say they have workable solutions in place, or are implementing one.
In addition to in-house solutions, several of the executives said they have used consumer-facing products, such as Zoom, Skype, Google Duo and Apple FaceTime as part of their tech solution to the functionality and capacity issues of healthcare encounters using Telehealth. Nevertheless capacity remains a long-term problem, with some citing the explosive growth in telehealth visits.

Yet to be solved is remote patient monitoring, which has been another major technology concern during the COVID-19 crisis. Only four of the organizations report having workable solutions to address this issue, eight of them said the problem remains unsolved.

Other persistent issues the survey revealed included interoperability, real-time data analytics, work-from-home resources and patient surveillance and security.

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Source: KLAS press release