Even if there are no longer any social distancing restrictions in place, many healthcare providers are still opting to continue their medical practice through telehealth. Virtual healthcare visits exploded in popularity in 2020, and the CDC noted that telehealth visits shot up by more than 150% during this period due to social distancing protocols. McKinsey and Company predict that up to $250 billion of current healthcare spending will move towards virtual healthcare in the next few years.
Recognizing the demand for accessible healthcare, more providers and patients are planning to use telehealth services. If you’re one of the providers that are planning to make the transition to telemedicine, here are the tools that you’ll need to invest in:
Reliable High-Speed Internet Connection
If you’re in the middle of a virtual consultation, the last thing you’d want to experience is getting disconnected due to your internet connection. This does not only disrupt important conversations but can also affect your patients’ customer experience.
Unfortunately, about 21% of rural Americans find it difficult to access high-speed internet connections. Given that reliable internet access is crucial for your practice, you can go for wireless services, which do not require cables, fiber optics, or telephone line connections that aren’t readily available in rural areas. You can also invest in better routers, which can handle higher speeds and provide more stable connections.
High-Quality Communication Devices
Despite a good internet connection, your patient may also fail to hear you properly due to your device’s speaker and microphone. This can be detrimental to their experience because they may miss crucial information regarding their medications and health status.
To guarantee a clear conversation with your patients, you can invest in headsets that provide a crisp audio output and come with noise-canceling microphones. You can even opt for a wireless business headset with a multi-functional wireless charging stand so that you can maintain a seamless calling experience with your patients, no matter where you may be. By investing in quality communication devices, you and your patient will be able to clearly discuss their medical concerns.
Reliable Telehealth Software
It may seem like Zoom or Skype are enough to communicate with your patients virtually. But if you want to deliver more professional service, you’ll need to utilize reliable telehealth software.
Unlike simple virtual conferencing tools, a virtual care platform takes your telemedicine practice to the next level by supporting virtual consultations, asynchronous visits, chat messaging, and even diagnostic processing. HIPAA-compliant and Infosec-certified platforms also ensure the data security of your consultations and correspondence, so that you can provide comprehensive and safe services online. Through these software programs, you can provide various services to your patients and maintain the confidentiality of your service throughout.
Remote Patient Monitoring Equipment
It can be difficult to monitor your patient and assess their progress, especially if you cannot visit them physically. Given that patient monitoring is crucial for recovery, you need to find ways to bridge this gap in virtual healthcare.
One solution that you can try is to invest in remote patient monitoring equipment, which can send you signals about your patients’ current health status. Wearable activity trackers or even Bluetooth thermometers are programmed to send your patients’ data through your devices. Through these devices, you can view their progress and be alerted of any alarming signs.
There are plenty of new technologies that can help you provide full-scale telemedicine services. By investing in these must-have tools, you can guarantee that your patients will experience high-quality services for many years to come.
If you have questions about headsets and other quality communications devices, contact Teams Device Center
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