Sleeping Giant' of Telehealth Awoke in 2020, and Here's Who Rose to the Challenge

A KLAS report determined that some telehealth technology vendors boomed due to the pandemic while others struggled, reports Healthcare IT News . "COVID-19 revealed telehealth to be a sleeping giant," the KLAS team reported. "Prior to COVID, the majority of interviewed organizations had telehealth visit volumes of less than 1 percent, but not surprisingly, those rates increased exponentially in the days and weeks immediately following the outbreak." The report focused on virtual care platforms, videoconferencing platforms, and electronic health record (EHR)-centric virtual care platforms. In the first category, customer satisfaction with Amwell has steadily plunged since 2018. But Amwell Now, deployed in response to COVID-19, has seen positive early feedback. In terms of videoconferencing, customers found Doxy.me's low cost appealing, but its onboarding, guidance, support and executive involvement "fall short of their expectations." Zoom customers lauded the platform's stability and scalability, but cited frustration with patient experience. Overall satisfaction with EHR-centric telehealth platforms from Epic and NextGen is high, although patients had mixed feelings about Epic due to the multiple applications involved.