Telemedicine offers health care facilities a variety of benefits. It improves the quality and convenience of care for the patient, while advancing the resources in your hospital to make it more reputable and opportune. Before receiving the success and benefit that comes with telehealth, however, you must prepare for your facility for the implementation process and streamline a steady workflow during integration.

Here are a few tips to consider before launching your new telemedicine program:

1. Make sure it’s built to scale

Flexibility is key when it comes to telemedicine, and your program should be built to scale to ensure the delivery of different services as you need them. For example, according to Modern Healthcare, your program should seamlessly coordinate patient scheduling while also allowing for electronic data intake, clinical assessment and documentation, utilization of engagement tools and much more. It is okay to start implementation small, servicing one or two specialties at first, but your program should incorporate a plan that is designed to scale up when necessary to address new service areas that as well.

2. Ensure your patients and physicians are educated

While teaching your staff members how to use telemedicine is critical to their everyday workflow, educating your patients and consulting physicians is just as important. This can settle uneasiness that comes from utilizing technology, and can also excite them about the new innovation coming to their health care facility. For patients, it is helpful to provide learning materials about the benefits, instructions and costs of using the services (if any), and even consider holding educational seminars and demos to run your patients through the processes. For consulting physicians, it is also critical to show them how this will benefit their patients, their time, and their pockets. Typically if a physician is part of the technology and vendor review process, they are more excited and supportive of the program and will become your champion users.

3. Have patience

A lot of hard work goes into telemedicine program implementation – between the costs, resources, time and learning dedicated to the new solution – so you and your staff members might find it difficult to remain calm if something does not go as planned. Remember to be patient because there are so many pieces involved. You will have much more success if you give your staff, patients, and of course the technology a chance before rushing to judgment about your new telemedicine strategy. The process is going to take time to get used to, and jumping to conclusions can leave you feeling sour about the investment.

4. Trust in your vendor

There’s a reason you chose your specific vendor, likely based on research and reviews, so trust in your selection. As the world’s leading supplier of complete telemedicine solutions AMD Global Telemedicine can provide suggestions and assistance from the beginning of the planning process, to the day of implementation and so on. Take recommendations from AMD to maximize use out of your new telemedicine strategy.