How to Sell Your Team on Telehealth

Four Ways to Attract Internal Buy-In for a New Telehealth Program

Telehealth is quickly taking the healthcare industry by storm as more providers and facilities incorporate digital technology into their practice. If your facility is still on the fence about implementing a telehealth program, you might need to pitch upper management on the benefits of this technology.

Change isn’t always easy, and your supervisors might need a push in the right direction if your facility hopes to ever get a telehealth program off the ground. Use these tips to sell your colleagues on telehealth so you can improve patient access to care and reap the cost-saving benefits.

Use Real-Life Examples

During your time as a healthcare provider, chances are you’ve helped patients that would have benefited from using a telemedicine platform. Perhaps they made an unnecessary trip to the emergency room, costing them a fortune in medical bills when they could have talked to their doctor using live video instead.

Or maybe you had a patient living in a remote area who didn’t have access to the care they needed because they couldn’t find transportation to a local health clinic. Talk to your colleagues and look for real-life examples of patients that desperately need access to this technology.

Estimate the Savings

From a business perspective, telehealth implementation makes perfect sense. Your facility can save money by encouraging your patients to use this technology. And the facts work to your advantage. One hospital reportedly saves $86.64 every time a telehealth application is used over an in-person visit in the ER or urgent care.

You can also cite the Veterans Health Administration as an example to your advantage. Incorporating telehealth into their post-cardiac arrest care program reduced hospital readmissions by 51%. In addition, a telehealth consultation via live video costs much less than an in-person visit.

Use Patient Demand to Your Advantage

As more consumers of healthcare services learn about telehealth, more are expressing interest in using these new digital services. In fact, 65% of patients with a primary care provider would be willing to see them through a telehealth visit. You can use this information to your advantage when trying to sell your colleagues on telehealth.

Talk to your team about how this technology can make your patient’s lives easier. With an effective telehealth system in place, your patients can quickly login to the internet to consult with their doctor instead of having to make the trip for an in-person visit.

Sources:

https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/01/18/virtual-doctors-visits-the-promises-of-telemedicine

https://www.aha.org/system/files/research/reports/tw/15jan-tw-telehealth.pdf

https://www.usnews.com/news/healthcare-of-tomorrow/articles/2018-02-27/can-telemedicine-be-both-cost-efficient-and-high-quality

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/top-10-questions-physicians-ask-about-telehealth