The COVID-19 pandemic has changed almost every aspect of our daily lives. 我们今天在医疗保健领域看到的是前所未有的. Most hospitals have very low overall daily census due to canceled surgeries and general fear of going to the hospital at this time. This negatively impacts revenue and ongoing financial viability. 同时, most hospitals are experiencing very high census in the critical care areas, many even having to create new intensive care areas on the fly, repurposing other areas of the hospital to accommodate these critically ill patients. 另外, the uncertainty of a patient’s COVID status due to insufficient test kits and long delays in receiving results has added to the fear and uncertainty.
However, as in almost any crisis, there also is opportunity. As patients began coming to physician offices and emergency departments with COVID symptoms, providers immediately began to look for ways to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. 直接而简单的答案就是远程医疗. 就在几周内, 我们克服了多年来对远程医疗的抵制，因为, 几乎立即, 所有的利益相关者都是一致的.
让我们从一个简单的定义开始. Telehealth is generally defined as a healthcare provider-patient visit or encounter conducted remotely. 其他远程会话解决方案, 比如远程病人家庭访问, are not telehealth but can rely on the same 技术 solutions. These have been used extensively during the COVID crisis – especially to provide patients a way to stay connected to loved ones when visitors are no longer allowed in hospitals.
Though telehealth visits were gradually increasing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were numerous issues with adoption – from reluctant insurance companies and uncertain reimbursement rules, 给不热心的医生和不情愿的病人. Then, COVID-19 struck and the roadblocks to widespread adoption were decimated in a few short weeks.
Telehealth visits are now being used in ways many envisioned for years. 例如, many primary care physicians (PCPs) are now using telehealth visits for initial symptom assessment to prevent a possible COVID-19 positive patient from infecting others via an office visit. PCPs are also providing follow-up visits for sick patients who are at home. 回到未来, we now have doctors making virtual house calls again and the satisfaction rates of both physicians and patients is high. The convenience of scheduling and the ease of simply connecting online is likely to change the nature of healthcare forever.
Other uses of telehealth popping up due to COVID-19 include pharmacists having virtual visits with patients in the ER before discharge and behavioral health consults for critically ill in-patients. Being able to provide a virtual visit while reducing potential COVID-19 exposure has been one of the ways healthcare organizations have been working to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19 spread.
Some of the challenges remain, including ensuring the selected platform is secure. While there are telehealth companies that provide the hardware and software solution for telehealth visits, many of the recent solutions have been commercially available “remote meeting” or “teleconferencing” services. Not all of these have lived up to their promised security claims, but those in the spotlight have taken swift and effective measures to shore up their security. 和往常一样，我们必须看看 人员、流程 and 技术 when working to ensure these connections remain safe, reliable and secure.
人 – Providers and patients need to understand how to set up and maintain secure sessions. Posting meeting IDs or not requiring meeting passwords makes these sessions vulnerable to potential hackers. Learning how to initiate and terminate sessions properly prevents accidental breaches of information (similar to a “hot mic” at a news conference). 最后, ensuring the selected platform has security controls enabled and locked down will reduce potential risk.
过程 -制定供应商标准工作, whether for telehealth sessions or for patient-family communication, 将有助于确保会议的适当设置, 担保并终止. In the mayhem of the COVID-19 response, many solutions were propped-up in an almost ad hoc manner. Now is the time to go back and review the set-up and the process, 并采取任何必要的补救措施来提高安全性.
技术 – Work to ensure the selected 技术 platform is secure and that the security controls that exist are properly enabled. If monitoring and auditing are available, ensure you monitor use. 最后, encourage your users to contact you with any security concerns or unusual events so you can take swift action to stop issues that may arise.
我们在使用远程医疗方面达到了一个新的门槛, 时间将证明这是否会成为新常态. 报销已获批准，流程已确定, it’s likely that telehealth will remain an important aspect of healthcare going forward. 危机过后是机遇.
保持安全.
编者按: For more resources from ISACA related to the COVID-19 pandemic, visit our 浏览COVID-19页面.
