Telehealth is no longer viewed as a foreign experience, but necessary to increase patient access for routine and urgent care. It is undisputed that the public health emergency of COVID-19 has pushed telehealth modality to become embedded in the fabric of delivering health care and mental health services to patients. It also opens the flexibility for healthcare providers to deliver healthcare services to those patients who are not only at high risk, but also may be experiencing some psychosocial distress and are homebound. But how do we make telehealth work not only for the providers, but also for the patient? There are so many studies being done now on the efficacy of telehealth and healthcare services, but we cannot forget that telehealth starts at registration. For a successful telehealth service and experience, teamwork and communication are crucial for both the patient and the provider to have a meaningful experience.

The National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM) News brief posted that the registration process is critically important to ensure high quality medical care. Accurate registration ensures that prior prescription, hospitalization information are readily available to providers; that recent records form visits can be easily reviewed, that data obtained during the visit will be readily available to subsequent providers, that prescriptions can reach the patients pharmacy without errors, and facilitates follow-up contact for results of testing that are not available during the course of the visit. Continuous teamwork and communication assessments are important, the entire team must be on the same page when it comes to delivering effective healthcare services via telehealth.

The team, which should not be limited to the following staff, is super important in expanding communication and resolving issues in a timely manner: physician, patient, registrar, nurse, medical assistant, behavioral health specialist, IT staff, and care coordination. You might have noticed that we included the patient, as part of the team and communication, yes, it is particularly important that the patient absolutely knows what to expect before, during, and after the telehealth visit.

Enhancing patient access is like an orchestra, every member of the band has a specific role and skills and together they combine the different sounds of each instrument, and every melody or sound is interpreted at a specific time. The same should be for enhancing patient access to telehealth services, the team must rehearse, deliver, and reassess.

Resources:

Sauer, B., Torres-Lavoro, J., Greenwald, P., & Sharma, R. (2020). Patient access and telehealth begins with Resources: registration.-Retrieved – https://www.naham.org/page/ConnectionsPatientAccessandTelehealth