Kansas City,
12
February
2018
|
13:27 PM
America/Chicago

HIT Infrastructure: Health IT Infrastructure Supports Successful Telemedicine Programs

By Elizabeth O'Dowd

Health IT infrastructure is significantly impacted by the growing popularity of telemedicine, with clinicians and patients able to take advantage of innovative tools.

Organizations are deploying telemedicine programs to cut back on costs associated with patients visiting care providers. These programs also help patients in rural areas get access to care without having to travel.

Patient convenience and cutting back costs are two benefits of telemedicine, but setting up a successful telemedicine program from an infrastructure perspective needs a significant amount of attention.

Organizations need to consider how clinicians and patients are securely connecting to the network remotely. Entities also need to know how strong that connection is to support video streaming and other data intensive telemedicine needs.

The telemedicine market is expected to reach almost $64 million by 2022 as more healthcare organizations build telehealth programs, according to a recent Research and Markets report. An increasing population, more people living with chronic disease, and the desire for people to consult with specialists that aren’t in their area also fuel the telemedicine rise.

Telemedicine also assists interoperability efforts by offering a channel for different healthcare providers to communicate on the same platform, the report found.

Telemedicine was also one of the most funded healthcare technologies last year as VC saw the potential value and demand for it.

Telemedicine is about reliable connectivity no matter where the clinician or patient are located. Unreliable connectivity will prevent any telemedicine program from being successful, according to Children’s Mercy Kansas City.

“Telemedicine is not like a business conference where you can tolerate some poor quality and metal through it,” Director of Telemedicine at Children’s Mercy Morgan Waller told HITInfrastructure.com in a previous interview. “Poor quality connection is a total dealbreaker for us.”

 

Read the full article via HIT Infrastructure.

Learn about Telemedicine technology services at Children's Mercy.