The healthcare industry has experienced rapid changes since the beginning of the decade. Two of these changes — an increase in care delivery via telehealth and the advancement of AI technology — are creating a synergy in healthcare that few organizations can afford to overlook as they plan for the future. With ongoing challenges looming, from an increase in the population of older adults seeking care to staffing shortages and regulatory changes, AI use in telehealth holds promise in improving care delivery mitigating the untenable issues that exist.
Telehealth grew rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a surge from 5 to 53 million Medicare recipients accessing virtual care. Eighty percent of physicians plan to continue offering telehealth services even though the pandemic has ended . This surge has been driven by both patient and provider demand to offer patients greater accessibility and in allow providers more flexibility.
Telehealth continues to grow post-pandemic as the world has changed in terms of the acceptance of virtual interactions. With the exponential expansion of AI impacting the world and certainly the healthcare environment there is much opportunity to blend these two technologically driven aspects together to help solve the problems that exist today.
AI in telehealth helps connect providers with patients in the community in ways that were near impossible just a few short years ago, helping to bridge gaps in data and allowing providers to respond quickly to changes that require intervention without constant clinical evaluation.
At a basic level, wearable devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers can assist with monitoring and recording heart rate, activity levels, and even sleep patterns. While more diagnosis specific RPM tools support aspects like cardiology, endocrinology, orthopedics and medication management. Beyond these intermittent insights into patient well-being, telehealth platforms now integrate AI for continuous monitoring via remote patient management when needed and discussion with the patient on these monitored areas. All these forms of AI-powered monitoring may also allow for automated alerts that can be sent to family members or to healthcare providers to help support individualized treatment plans without the use of a provider, nurse or other staff member.
For consistency in care delivery and quick response time, AI can be integrated into telehealth platforms in multiple ways.
One application is AI chatbots, which can assist with questions for initial patient assessments, importing data into the correct fields in the electronic health record (EHR) for provider review, as well as evaluating symptoms and providing highly accurate triage insights before and during virtual visits.
Another is the ability to enhance and streamline clinical documentation through AI in the EHR/telehealth platforms by taking conversations and parsing those into a SOAP note and logical format, allowing providers to focus on their patients rather than their computer screens. As this matures this will move to also improving order management in the next evolution.
Although the use cases and benefits of AI in healthcare is almost infinite realistically only some are really being pursued today. This will continue to mature in the future but below some of the main areas will be described.
Real-time data analysis via monitoring of patient diagnostics allows for immediate feedback and adjustments geared to the patients specific health profile using established benchmarks. This can include an evaluation of anything from routine vital signs to regular glucose level monitoring, cardiac rhythms just to name a few. AI also supports predictive analytics that can help with early detection of health issues, both at an individual level and at a population level (such as predicting disease outbreaks).
AI frees up administrative time, allowing providers to spend more time directly with patients. In one review, 78% of healthcare staff whose organizations have implemented AI report improvements in their workflows which also assists with staff satisfaction in an environment with extremely high turnover rates.
This enables healthcare providers to provide personalized care plans that use insights from demographic clinical and behavioral data to customize treatment recommendations. Long-term monitoring and tracking of patient data related to diseases like diabetes or hypertension can alert providers to trends that benefit from early intervention resulting in better clinical care and at a macro level savings to the overall cost of healthcare in the US.
Providers who are interested in implementing AI in telehealth do so because they recognize the many benefits for their staff, patients and communities. By improving the patient experience, driving better care outcomes, and improving efficiencies to boost staff satisfaction, healthcare organizations can remain competitive in a crowded marketplace.
Like all healthcare IT, AI-based telehealth requires careful patient privacy standards, organizational change management and strategic implementation. Healthcare organizations seeking to harness complex technology like AI in telehealth can strongly benefit from having experienced support. For 20 years, Hartman Executive Advisors has helped provide the operational synergies healthcare companies need to thrive in a rapidly evolving world. Contact us today for a free consultation and start your AI journey.