Shaping the future: needs and expectations of telehealth professionals

The purpose of this study was to determine telehealth professionals' current experience with technology, expectations of future technical improvements, and how the technology might impact the delivery of care, including communication with patients and patient safety. We developed a semi-structured interview protocol with eight open-ended questions. A sample of telehealth professionals of the Missouri Telehealth Network (MTN) was selected to represent all major clinical specialties. Interviews were conducted during face-to-face encounters or over the phone. A content analysis was performed using the interview transcripts. A total of 32 telehealth professionals were interviewed (representing 80% of all professionals who were registered MTN users at the time of the study). Twenty-six of them are care providers (physicians, nurses, etc.), and the remaining six are administrators or educators. Self-reported experience with telemedicine ranged from 1 to 7 years (mean 3.72 years). Telehealth professionals find the technology acceptable and easy to integrate in the care delivery process. However, many professionals believe there is room for improvement and would like it to reach a more consistent, reliable, but yet flexible state. They recommended that emphasis be placed on improvement of the audio features, establishment of connections, and avoidance of interruptions. Thirty-two percent of the respondents did not know whether practicing telemedicine over the telehealth network would increase the risk of security and privacy violations. The study findings suggest that telehealth professionals need to be educated about the security features of a telehealth network. In addition, continuous quality improvement, including internal and external benchmarking, is applicable to telemedicine settings and can both improve the quality of teleconsultations and minimize errors.