When speaking of potential telemedicine applications in nursing homes, we are referring to two types of care facility, i.e., intermediate care facilities (ICFs) and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). When this posting uses the term “nursing home”, it is generally referring only to ICFs and SNFs

The pandemic has affected every area of medical practice, including hospital medicine. Now that the pandemic shows signs of ending, we asked ourselves, what impacts on hospital medicine are likely to be permanent?

You’ve analyzed the clinical and financial dimensions and decided that telehospitalist services are the right solution for your hospitalist needs. You’ve taken the first steps, e.g., evaluating different technology platforms

In our last blog post, we highlighted a number of obstacles that can stand in the way of implementing a successful telehospitalist program, such as reimbursement, licensure and credentialing, and electronic health records

Is your hospital having trouble recruiting and/or retaining hospitalists? Are you having trouble getting doctors to cover certain shifts, like nights or weekends? Is your hospital having trouble recruiting and/or retaining hospitalists? Are some or all of your current onsite hospitalists overburdened?

You have read about the potential benefits of using telehospitalist services and are interested in exploring the possibilities further. However, you know that your CFO will need to see some evidence of the service’s positive impact on the hospital’s bottom line before proceeding. How, then, do you make the financial case for using telehospitalist services?

Previous blog posts have tried to help you to decide whether a telehospitalist program is right for your hospital. Assuming you have decided that it is, what should your first steps be? In this post, we provide a road-map for setting up a your telehospitalist program, which includes:

Once your hospital or hospital system has made the decision to adopt the telehospitalist model, it needs to decide next whether to provide the telehospitalist service using its own in-house staff and resources, or to bring in an outside contractor. This post describes the major pros and cons of each approach, as well as some contracting best practices to be aware of should you decide to go the outside contractor route.

Where did telehospitalist services originate, and where are they likely headed? Other blog posts in this series have mostly dealt with the specifics of setting up a telehospitalist service, but an understanding of the historical context in which telehospitalist services have developed, including recent development in the field, is also important to obtaining the maximum benefit.