Healthcare executives are taking tentative steps toward widely using telemedicine, finds a survey (PDF) of 57 executives by law firm Foley & Lardner.
While 84% of the executives surveyed think that telemedicine is either very important or important to their organization, other results indicate their programs are still at a preliminary stage; 34% say their telemedicine program is “under consideration or development,” and an additional 16% say that their programs are in the pilot phase. By comparison, only 6% describe their programs as in the “sustain” or “mature” phase.
The challenges appear to come primarily from reimbursement—48% of executives said that a lack of reimbursement for telemedicine services is their primary challenge to implementing such services. The problem extends to getting physicians within the organization onboard; 36% of executives surveyed said that “ensuring physicians feel adequately compensated for their participation” is their most significant issue preventing physician acceptance of the technology.
In the future, however, the executives expect use of telemedicine services to only involve a modest chunk of their patients; 23% of executives expect less than 10% of their patients to be using their telemedicine services in three years' time, and 38% expect 10% to 30% of their patients to be using telemedicine in the same time frame.
Executives appear to be concentrating in technologies like “remote monitoring” (64% of executives saying it is a currently-available service) and “store and forward” (54%).
Follow Darius Tahir on Twitter: @dariustahir
