Banty Co-Founder and Medical Director, Dr. Richard Tytus, provided the subject matter and direction for this article. The author would like to thank Adam Grant for his editorial assistance in writing the article. Dr. Richard Tytus takes responsibility for the content of the article.
Thanks to the rise of telehealth the past couple of years, the medical community has been tasked with re-evaluating how it does business. While brick-and-mortar clinics are still very necessary, the attraction to patients and doctors connecting via a live video chat online continues to grow.
At first, making such a shift could be intimidating to certain medical practices. After all, it is hard to break an established routine after so many years of success. However, in order to thrive long-term, one must be open to change.
Change, when gone about the right way, can be a truly motivating force for both an individual, as well as a group of workers. For a medical clinic in particular, changing course and beginning to conduct online doctor’s appointments can give it a real tangible boost.
If you are a medical professional interested in conducting virtual medicine appointments, let’s take a look at how doing so can galvanize your clinic:
Team Collaboration Comes to Life
As easy as it will eventually become for any medical clinic to host online doctor visits, it will take a great level of early and often team collaboration to get things going.
More specifically, processes will need to be developed and responsibilities defined. While a clinic’s leadership team can get the ball rolling on this, it will ultimately be up to the entirety of the clinical team to ensure the practice’s online medicine process is steady and patient-friendly.
Throughout this time, there may be a tinge of stress here and there, but ultimately such an exercise will jumpstart a clinic and reinvigorate those who work within it.
Training Together
Inherently, some clinical team members will have a better initial understanding of telemedicine solutions than others. This could be due to some team members having a lack of technological expertise, or a general discomfort about the process of conducting online doctor’s appointments.
However, those who are excited about pushing forward with doctor-patient video calls can inspire those who need help getting up to speed. This can come in the form of a more personalized training experience, or energized conversations about why it will pay off to get as engrossed in telehealth as possible.
Beyond building camaraderie and improving team-wide understanding of virtual medicine, these training sessions can prove to all involved that what they are learning about can positively impact their professional life.
Work to Attract Patients
Once processes are developed and training has taken place, the next step for any medical clinic should be for the team to work together on attracting patients to telehealth.
In many cases, what will be encountered is a sizable sum of patients who have heard about remote doctor-patient appointments, but don’t understand how to find a doctor online, or how a virtual appointment is structured.
At this juncture, the team must get together and figure out how to best approach patients about giving online medicine a try. Going through such an exercise and getting patients onboard can show everyone on the team that their practice can successfully evolve.
No matter which industry you are in, seeing the company you work for evolve is a highly motivational experience.
