Telehealth is widely considered to be a revolutionary approach to healthcare services provision. However, it is not as popular as it possibly could, considering its role in improving accessibility and responsiveness. At the same time, businesses have switched to virtual communication as soon as it became available to the public. In this paper, the barriers to telehealth adoption will be analyzed to determine why this practice has not seen more rapid development while technologies for it exist for decades.
There are several key factors that prevented telehealth from being quickly adopted. In comparison with business technologies, healthcare policies favor reliability and safety above profitability and advantages over previous methods. The infrastructure to be utilized for telehealth was not readily available for all potential beneficiaries (Lin et al., 2018). Another issue consisted of the lack of technical knowledge among both medical personnel and patients that was essential for service utilization (Lin et al., 2018). Moreover, insurance is a critical factor in healthcare technology adoption. Certain states and insurance providers were slow to consider telehealth as a valid option for coverage due to arguable results in cost-efficiency (Lin et al., 2018). In comparison with personal or business usage of online communication tools, telehealth lagged behind because of its seeming complexity of meaningful implementation.
In conclusion, the adoption of telehealth was met with several barriers for implementation that were resolved in business communication at a rapid pace. Telehealth, like any other new healthcare technology, required extensive trials, policies, and promotions. In turn, market communications favor those who take risks and push towards the adoption of innovative technologies at the cost of possible failure. Such an approach is not a feasible strategy in healthcare services, as people’s lives are directly at stake in this environment.
Reference
Lin, C. C., Dievler, A., Robbins, C., Sripipatana, A., Quinn, M., & Nair, S. (2018). Telehealth in health centers: Key adoption factors, barriers, and opportunities. Health Affairs, 37(12), 1967-1974. Web.