Making the Post-Pandemic Telehealth Pivot

At the height of the pandemic, many healthcare organizations quickly launched or expanded telehealth platforms to address the shift from in-person to virtual care. With the pandemic waning, those organizations are looking to transition into a long-term, sustainable platform that integrates virtual and in-person care — what many call hybrid care.

It’s not an easy task. Federal and state lawmakers have yet to provide clear guidance on post-pandemic telehealth policy. The landscape is filled with hundreds of telehealth platforms and services, some of which have worked well as quick fixes during the pandemic but aren’t sustainable for a long-term strategy. Healthcare providers have to plan carefully, offering services and tools that meet patient demands while also fitting smoothly into staff workflows and offering the best chance at improved outcomes and reduced costs.

Learning from the pandemic

There are certainly lessons to be learned from COVID-19. First and foremost, telehealth does work, and it can and will be an integral part of the healthcare experience moving forward. But the technology has to be versatile, adjusting to the needs of both providers and patients. Video visits are fine for some cases, but others work well with online — often called asynchronous or store-and-forward — telehealth. This approach is especially beneficial to areas where connectivity is questionable and patients likely lack the means to use audio-visual (synchronous) telehealth. 

Therein lies the first challenge to healthcare organizations as they move past the pandemic. Many providers launched or adapted their telehealth services on the fly to address a fast-growing public health emergency (PHE), in some cases adopting whatever they could find just to keep the lines of communication open with patients. They were aided in this process by emergency measures passed at the state and federal level to boost telehealth access and coverage during the pandemic.

Now those emergency measures are ending, and providers are learning that the telehealth platforms and tools they’re using don’t meet privacy and security standards or aren’t good enough to scale up and out. In addition, some of the services offered may not be allowed or covered if regulations revert to pre-pandemic guidelines, forcing providers to end programs and leave patients hanging.

At this point, healthcare organizations must complete a full assessment of their telehealth programs. Will they stand up to changing state and federal guidelines? Can they be scaled out to meet the needs of a built-for-the-future hybrid healthcare strategy? Are these services integrated into the healthcare workflow, making the path smooth and seamless for both patients and providers? And are they sustainable, showing value both now and in the long run?

Planning for a smooth virtual care experience

Recent studies show that healthcare organizations want a virtual care platform that is an integral part of the healthcare process, not a special or different product or service. Some organizations have telehealth services that sit on the side, creating silos of care that focus on episodic treatments rather than integrated patient care. Some use telehealth vendors that supply their own providers, further exposing the gap between the patient and the health system. A long-term solution has to integrate with health records and other platforms, allowing patients and their care providers to switch seamlessly from in-person to online when the need arises. 

During the height of the pandemic, providers often created programs that served one distinct purpose or population, sometimes using call centers or separate pools of providers. However, the shift to hybrid care demands an all-inclusive platform that connects patients to their own care team (and vice versa) and allows for primary and specialty services. This approach makes the process easier for the patient, but it also reduces costly administrative and operational burdens for the provider. 

Funding is an important factor to keep in mind as the pandemic relief grants dry up and payers take a closer look at their reimbursement guidelines. A health system needs to ensure that telehealth is a part of the caregiving process, not a separate service that takes extra time, effort, and money. It also has to adhere to standards of care in place for in-person services so that clinical outcomes and benefits can be compared to in-person care.

The idea is to create a platform that looks and feels natural and treats telehealth as a part of the process, which, in turn, will enable healthcare organizations to gradually build out their services, taking aim at preventive health and wellness and other aspects of value-based care. 

The future of virtual care

Beyond all of this, providers need to understand why telehealth did as well as it did during the pandemic. Aside from allowing patients and providers to avoid in-person treatments and reducing the spread of COVID-19 and the chances of becoming infected, health systems found that virtual care had addressed patients’ needs and provided better or equal outcomes than would have been seen in an office visit. And as in-person care returns, virtual care can be seen not as a replacement but as an option, allowing patients to choose how they receive care. 

The answer to most of those questions revolves around convenience.  And the strategy is that the visit has to be easy and comfortable for the patient, or that patient will steer clear of the service and go back to in-person visits — or go somewhere else or stop seeking care altogether unless it’s an emergency. 

And while the pandemic created a surge in telehealth adoption, it also highlighted the consumerization of healthcare, where consumers have more choice about how and where they access care. Surveys have long pointed out that consumers value telehealth for the convenience, and healthcare organizations need to take that to heart and give them access where they want it, at home and on mobile devices.

Finally, the pandemic has taught providers the value of patient engagement and creating virtual collaborations that meet patient expectations and needs without forcing them out of their comfort zone. If providers and patients are comfortable using telehealth to deliver and receive care on that platform, they will use it again. And as that comfort level rises, opportunities will emerge for more uses, programs, or services. Then a primary care visit will become a health and wellness visit, and a patient who visits the doctor’s office regularly for chronic care management will try out a remote patient monitoring program, and a parent with a sick child will access a telehealth service rather than head to the ER.

As the pandemic wanes, telehealth will still be front-and-center because that’s what consumers want now. Savvy healthcare providers will realize this and use the technology and tools to usher in a whole new era in healthcare. 

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