Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

What should executives keep in mind as they consider the expanding acceptance of and preference for virtual care delivery among consumers and payers? There are three big considerations that are outlined in Virtual Care Demand Could Test Care Providers’ Health IT Infrastructure In 2015, a piece by Harry Wang, the lead analyst for Parks Associates’ digital health research program, that appeared recently in Computerworld.

  1. The video revolution has its challenges – While traditional patient portals are probably fine, according to Mr. Wang, interactive communications services using video could be a potential area for trouble. The issues to consider include video player configurations and related software challenges, system capabilities and reliability for increased video traffic, and security.
  2. Real-time health information exchange is the expectation – Virtual care increases timely access to professionals, and consumers expect their medical records to keep up. Increasing use of telehealth will highlight the problems of interoperability (see Net Neutrality Is About More Than Streaming Movies and Interoperable Electronic Data Exchange Is Non-Existent Among Long-Term Care Provider Organizations). Consumers expect timely access to past health records, lab tests, and diagnostic imaging.
  3. Dealing with all that remote monitoring data – The most advanced of virtual care systems leverage consumer self-monitoring capabilities, and integrated them into virtual care sessions. It sounds quite simple, but how such data will be fed into electronic health records (EHR) without delay and then compared with similar historical data is no simple matter. And, it is critically important to both the consumer experience and realizing cost savings from e-health.

From the article "The Uphill Climb To Virtual Care" by Monica E. Oss.

Previously In The News

Meet The Texas A&M Grad And DVR Inventor Who Turned Us Into Binge TV Watchers

Roku is the most popular brand of streaming media players in the U.S., according to a study by Parks Associates, a Dallas market research and consulting firm that specializes in consumer technology pr...

AT&T's Mega-Deal With Time Warner Banks On Your Connected Future

"You have industries that weren't traditionally impacted by each other all colliding and trying to figure out how to benefit from this change, while at the same time trying to protect their existing c...

Do you share your TV logins with friends and family? Cable operators are coming after you

About one-third of internet users stream cable TV without paying for it by using credentials of someone they don't live with, according to Parks Associates. The TV industry's losses from password shar...

Should AT&T listen to activist investor or stay the course?

HBO Max has become the bellwether that investors are watching to see whether AT&T can execute its entertainment vision. “Out of all their financials, it’s just a small part of AT&T,” said Brett Sap...