4 Strategies of On-Demand Telemedicine Disruptive Innovation
The Theory Of Disruptive Innovation Can Serve As A Strategic Roadmap For Maximizing Telemedicine's Value
On-Demand telemedicine will continue to be adopted by healthcare organizations to meet patient needs, convenience, accessibility and affordable services.
Little guidance exists to help explore the necessary steps to explore this disruptive innovation.
Telemedicine is not one health service offering but rather multiple potential service lines, each requiring goals, workflows, stakeholders and financing.
Healthcare organizations must address the 4 business strategies outlined to be successful.
Background
Newer forms of telemedicine will disrupt current care delivery models to create accessible and affordability in health care.
Disruptive innovation is closely tied to its business model.
Past failures in disruptive innovation in healthcare has been due to the inability to align the innovation with healthcare innovative business models.
Healthcare organizations are typically a mixture of multiple business models under one roof. Therefore, to be successful with a disruptive technology such as telemedicine, an innovative business model is needed as well.
The following 4 interrelated components must be addressed to fit together and form a strategic direction.
Review
Innovation in Care Delivery
On-Demand telemedicine represents a fundamental change in the patient care delivery process.
The key concept is ACCESSIBILITY.
Patient convenience, expedited and the right level of care delivery including follow-up services (check on patient progress or scheduling appointments).
Consider: How do we modernize the concept of the traditional House Call from the early 1900’s with home based diagnostics, peripheral devices and virtual visits?
Balancing Resources for on-Demand Clinical Services:
Outsourced resources are a relatively new concept to healthcare delivery
Due to its newness, there is limited data to guide us on the appropriate decisions to make.
Advantages of Clinical Outsourcing Include:
Lower internal resources needed
Increased flexibility
Outside resource responsible for operational issues and staffing costs
Disadvantages of Clinical Outsourcing include:
Should be avoided if the service has a high level of market uncertainty
Higher level of service complexity
Harder to integrate into internal systems (EMR, billing, ordering, etc)
Complete dependency on external clinical support is not a permanent strategy.
Should develop an appropriate balance between internal and external clinical support to meet the value proposition.
Disruptive Market Strategies:
Raising awareness is the first step in the use of a new innovation.
Developing a tight bond between the patient and organization is a key factor for the success of a Disruptive Innovation Telemedicine solution.
The service should be positioned as an available service offered by an organization the patient already knows and trusts to manage their medical care.
New Organizational Partnerships:
Explore new innovative relationships with external entities outside traditional healthcare organizations.
Self-Insured organizations
Hotel chains.
CONCLUSIONS:
As digital care goes mainstream, it is becoming even more debatable if telemedicine is a disruptive technology.
Newer forms of telemedicine will disrupt current care delivery models
To be successful, healthcare organizations must understand how to navigate business models and strategies to encourage adoption.
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