Improving the Usability of Televideo Technologies
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Abstract
Title:
Improving the Usability of Televideo Technologies
Name of Author, Organization and Address:
Christopher Herot, CEO, SBR Health, 1 Broadway 14th Floor Cambridge, MA 02142
Background:
Studies have shown that successful use of videoconferencing and real-time communications can profoundly benefit patients and doctors alike. Health care outcomes improve when truly collaborative communication takes place among doctors, specialists. Until recently, the specialized equipment, complexity and expensive network infrastructure required by video, as well as poor Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement policies made it impractical to utilize televideo technologies for care delivery unless the patient was a great distance from the doctor. Now, changing reimbursement models and low-cost desktop PC-based televideo technologies are making it easy and cost effective to use televideo in a wider array of patient and inter-clinician interactions.
Objective:
Today, low cost and ubiquitous technologies exist that can facilitate a world in which videoconferencing has a place on the desk of every doctor, nurse and clinician. However, what is needed at the clinician level are applications designed specifically for the healthcare industry with televideo as a communications modality. These needs to be extremely simple, highly secure, low cost and fully customizable. With these types of applications, health care professionals would have simple efficient communications tools to increase access to specialists, raise the overall levels of patient care, and improve the delivery of treatment.
Methods:
After interacting with a variety of forward-thinking healthcare professionals, SBR Health has learned that simply reducing the cost and complexity of televideo technologies itself does not solve the larger problem of how to utilize new and existing televideo technologies seamlessly in existing IT and clinical processes. Despite decreasing equipment costs and low-cost ubiquitous PC-based televideo, it remains difficult to integrate videoconferencing into health care workflows. In effect, we discovered something that proved to be true throughout health care – the success of any technology depends only 10% on the technology and 90% on how that technology is integrated with the organization’s workflow and protocols. It isn’t that the healthcare community is crying out for more, cheaper technology, but that is needs solutions to facilitate the delivery of care in a more efficient and effective manner.
Conclusion:
SBR Health will address the shortcoming of utilizing video as a means of communication in delivering care to patients at multiple places within the healthcare system, spanning from pre-encounter triages, to in-hospital settings to post-discharge locations such as rehab facilities, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, or even in their own homes. We will then address how applications and user interfaces can be developed to tightly couple the use of televideo with existing clinical and IT workflows to improve patient and clinician use experience and to minimize change management issues. SBR Health will also describe how they are working closely with many leading healthcare providers to pilot and deploy innovative approaches to overcome existing issues with televideo technologies that are preventing their widespread adoption and scale-up to larger patient populations.
Improving the Usability of Televideo Technologies
Name of Author, Organization and Address:
Christopher Herot, CEO, SBR Health, 1 Broadway 14th Floor Cambridge, MA 02142
Background:
Studies have shown that successful use of videoconferencing and real-time communications can profoundly benefit patients and doctors alike. Health care outcomes improve when truly collaborative communication takes place among doctors, specialists. Until recently, the specialized equipment, complexity and expensive network infrastructure required by video, as well as poor Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement policies made it impractical to utilize televideo technologies for care delivery unless the patient was a great distance from the doctor. Now, changing reimbursement models and low-cost desktop PC-based televideo technologies are making it easy and cost effective to use televideo in a wider array of patient and inter-clinician interactions.
Objective:
Today, low cost and ubiquitous technologies exist that can facilitate a world in which videoconferencing has a place on the desk of every doctor, nurse and clinician. However, what is needed at the clinician level are applications designed specifically for the healthcare industry with televideo as a communications modality. These needs to be extremely simple, highly secure, low cost and fully customizable. With these types of applications, health care professionals would have simple efficient communications tools to increase access to specialists, raise the overall levels of patient care, and improve the delivery of treatment.
Methods:
After interacting with a variety of forward-thinking healthcare professionals, SBR Health has learned that simply reducing the cost and complexity of televideo technologies itself does not solve the larger problem of how to utilize new and existing televideo technologies seamlessly in existing IT and clinical processes. Despite decreasing equipment costs and low-cost ubiquitous PC-based televideo, it remains difficult to integrate videoconferencing into health care workflows. In effect, we discovered something that proved to be true throughout health care – the success of any technology depends only 10% on the technology and 90% on how that technology is integrated with the organization’s workflow and protocols. It isn’t that the healthcare community is crying out for more, cheaper technology, but that is needs solutions to facilitate the delivery of care in a more efficient and effective manner.
Conclusion:
SBR Health will address the shortcoming of utilizing video as a means of communication in delivering care to patients at multiple places within the healthcare system, spanning from pre-encounter triages, to in-hospital settings to post-discharge locations such as rehab facilities, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, or even in their own homes. We will then address how applications and user interfaces can be developed to tightly couple the use of televideo with existing clinical and IT workflows to improve patient and clinician use experience and to minimize change management issues. SBR Health will also describe how they are working closely with many leading healthcare providers to pilot and deploy innovative approaches to overcome existing issues with televideo technologies that are preventing their widespread adoption and scale-up to larger patient populations.
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