Opinion
This article about human healthcare advances in telehealth applications adds context to veterinary teams’ efforts to define, implement and manage its role in sound animal care. Note Brent Oliver’s, MD, comments about nurse practitioners handling asynchronous telehealth visits, reducing ER visits, client comfort, increased touch points and high rate of diagnoses.
Compelled by consumers who don’t always want to schedule a video visit or drive to the doctor’s office or ER, health systems are finding new value in asynchronous, or store-and-forward, telehealth, writes Eric Wicklund. Many healthcare organizations are finding an asynchronous, also called store-and-forward, platform works better for certain services.
Not every telehealth encounter has to include video, or even be a real-time conversation . . . Our patients want this and if we don’t have it, they’ll go elsewhere.”
Source: Healthleaders, June 21, 2022. Link.
INSIGHTS: There are obvious impediments to telehealth for human and veterinary:
- Empowering credentialed support professionals to manage the visits
- Convincing third-party payers to define and cover the visits
- Engaging knowledgeable, skilled people to write and manage the questionnaires