Telehealth has a wide variety of applications and uses from front-desk scheduling, prescription refills, and billing all the way to patient evaluations and followups. Understanding your practice’s specific needs and your clients’ aspirations is central in the planning phase to making wise telehealth service choices.
At this point, you are ready to make a decision about which telehealth services you want to implement based on priorities assigned during your needs and opportunities assessment. To move forward with the best chance of success, you must first understand what will be necessary organizationally, clinically, and technologically to develop your telehealth program.
Implementing new telehealth services in your practice may require modifying your workflow to ensure a positive experience for clients, patients, and the veterinary team. Logistics such as work and exam space; appointment scheduling; data monitoring; and management, staffing, and communication may need to be adjusted.
Successful implementation or expansion of a telehealth program is a team effort. Success depends on buy-in and return on investment for both your veterinary team and your clients, and it’s important that your patients actually benefit as well. Your goals should be for your team and clients to be engaged and active advocates of your telehealth services.
You are now ready to implement your program. All aspects should have been tested and tweaked.
Define success early on and collect data from the beginning of your program. Starting with a clear vision of success allows the practice to highlight improvements made with each metric and, ultimately, the overall success of its telehealth services.
Asynchronous communication, or communication between parties that is not live, may allow practices to be more efficient in managing their schedules by eliminating phone and email tag. It also provides more opportunities for marketing and engagement. Younger generations often prefer asynchronous communication like texting.
While veterinary practices and veterinarians don’t currently have to be HIPPA compliant, client confidentiality is required under many state veterinary practice acts, and business requirements for protecting the privacy of personal and financial information also apply.
Some client communication platform providers offer third-party general advice to your clients. This can be during normal business hours or after hours to help clients avoid unnecessary visits to the emergency clinic and instead redirect them to your practice for an evaluation. While this does add to the cost of the platform, it may be a valuable service that benefits clients, patients, and practices.
Advances in telehealth technologies are helping shape the future of veterinary healthcare. Telemedicine consults, remote monitoring devices, and AI are all evolving to provide healthcare teams new ways to gain deeper levels of patient information that enhance diagnosis and treatment decisions, while also fostering client relationships.
