Telemedicine and the Way Forward

For some time, Healthcare industry experts have advocated moving more rapidly to telemedicine, in an effort to reduce cost. In the last five years, many  insurers have begun providing telemedicine offerings as part of their Digital Transformation journey. A few notables have aggressively created a platform and made it available to their members for usage. But more broadly, the usage has been limited.

In unusual times like the ones we are in today, given restrictions on movement and limited availability of medical and other logistical resources, telemedicine is turning into  a valuable asset for  patients. Even with basic features available, when a patient cannot visit a doctor, it is now much easier to  call and schedule an e-visit. These platforms allow for real-time interaction with nurses, making prescriptions requests and video conferencing with the doctors possible.  For example, patients can share pictures of a wound or impacted area, and quickly sync these with doctor notes on measured vitals by the individuals.  Such additional features make up for the lack of digital records that are accessed when we visit the doctor.

With increasing usage and adoption, the higher volume of data will provide additional and refreshed insights into the effectiveness of the model, which will surely lead to more innovation in this area.  All the data resides in one platform, providing the full medical team – doctors, nurses and care managers with the insights to the status of the patients medical history.  In addition, patients will have access to this data, which can be easily shared between multiple medical providers or from one insurer to another. These platforms will evolve into the complete ecosystem – from the basic necessity of a routine doctor visit to care management.

Cost optimization of such models will also evolve with time. Until today it was just another alternative to members. Given how organizations have responded to the pandemic, we have seen these telemedicine platforms move to the center of the conversation as a mission critical service. True effectiveness of the e-visits have resulted into reduced visits to emergency or urgent care facilities, reduced hospitalization rates, increasing access to global expertise of doctors, higher member satisfaction rates and more. It may have taken a crisis, but it is clear that  ‘telemedicine’ is the way forward.

Rahul Dhingra

Expert in Insurance

Rahul is a certified SAFe 5.0. agilist and Senior Engagement Manager with experience in managing multiple Insurance engagements and transformation programs in North Americas, leading mid-size to large delivery engagements, and providing quality delivery in Capgemini’s Rightshore® model. My expertise, not limited to below:
Global IT Delivery
Consulting and Business Transformation – Insurance (Health, P&C, Group Benefits)
Business Solution Architecture
He has worked in pre-sales/solution owner roles for couple of years, leading the Capgemini Healthcare Domain Focus Group (DFG) with vision and mission to build innovative solutions leveraging latest technology that can be taken to the market and customers. And successfully partnered with Capgemini teams in building the below go-to-market solutions:
Claims Fraud Prevention framework using various scientific statistical modelling
Mobile app for Medical and Vision Insurers with analytics, self-service capabilities built into it
Appeals and Grievance solution built on Pega Platform
Healthcare benchmarking and capability assessment
Rahul is a sports lover and loves playing and watching sports. He is a ‘Gunners’ (Arsenal F.C., England) fan at heart and follows them and the sport of soccer very closely. He is also an active in contributing in many different ways to the society. He volunteers for food banks, blood donation camps and also has been an elected Board of Members for his Home Owners Association for a term of two years.