Telehealth implementation guide seeks to smooth adoption, improve sustainability
Roadblocks remain, with few detailed road maps for those looking to develop a sustainable telehealth strategy.
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Even as health systems nationwide continue their rapid implementation of telehealth services and platforms, roadblocks remain to successful implementation, with few detailed road maps for institutions looking to develop a sustainable telehealth strategy.
The Telehealth Service Implementation Model (TSIM), developed at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), seeks to change that.
It offers a telehealth framework aimed at supporting grassroots innovations, and accounts for the many factors necessary for successful telehealth service development, charting a course across six phases from pipeline and strategy to operations and continuous quality improvement.
The TSIM also provides checkpoints and milestones to facilitate provider engagement and user-friendliness, outlines pathways to scale telehealth services, and includes guidance on ways to optimize administrative and technical support.
The initial framework, created in 2017, has continued to evolve. The TSIM discusses lessons learned through real-world vignettes and describe how a guiding framework could have mitigated these challenges.
The Center has also formed strategic partnerships with external entities in software development and curriculum creation, in the effort to help scale TSIM and the lessons learned to a broader audience.
WHY IT MATTERS
A federally recognized Telehealth Center of Excellence, MUSC has extensive experience in telehealth program development, implementation and evaluation, presently offering 80 unique telehealth services at more than 300 clinical sites across 46 South Carolina counties.
Recent analysis suggests that downstream capture from telehealth as a "digital front door" does not suggest strong consumer loyalty.
The study suggested the importance of considering payment parity and competition – including from retailers – in addition to understanding primary drivers of telehealth utilization when developing telehealth strategies.
THE LARGER TREND
A survey from Business Group on Health published two days after the MUSC study found fully 76% of employers surveyed said they accelerated telehealth and virtual health offerings since the start of the pandemic, and plan to maintain these options.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced a plan to invest more than $19 million to expand telehealth in rural communities. Funds to pilot new telehealth services, track outcomes and publish research will establish an evidence base for future telehealth programs.
ON THE RECORD
"TSIM organizes all of the steps involved in developing a telehealth program," MUSC's program director for the NTCE and the report's senior author Dee Ford said in a statement. "It is strategy driven and provides workflows for the clinical, administrative, regulatory and technology components of telehealth. TSIM doesn't stop there, though; it continues into telehealth application and quality assessment."
