"Telemedicine is the solution that hospitals struggling with physician shortages need – they need it to increase vital access to care in both large and small facilities alike," said Eagle Telemedicine President and COO Jason Povio. “Higher patient satisfaction rates and diverse hospital benefits make telemedicine programs a transformational option for strengthening hospital sustainability while improving patient outcomes."
Eagle Telemedicine is an advanced inpatient and outpatient telemedicine solution for areas like specialty coverage, night shift care, and staffing gap support. Eagle offers its technically advanced services to physicians for improving patient care and enhancing hospital revenue, the Eagle team’s work has increased admissions, enhanced specialty access for patients, and lowered transfer rates. That, in culmination, is why that quote from Povio is important; with those philosophy-led operations, Eagle has been able to help “35+ U.S. states and 350+ physicians,” according to their team. That spans, in total, at least 66,400 patient encounters across 17 specialties with a 97.6% physician retention rate.
That’s, by those numbers alone, is sustainable healthcare resilience.
To that point, Eagle Telemedicine also, just this past week, announced the results of the “Eagle 2023 Telemedicine Adoption Survey,” and the numbers there speak volumes, as well.
Focusing greatly on current implementations and (both their successes and shortfalls), Eagle’s findings showed that 94.6% of U.S. hospitals actively use telemedicine; primarily to help offset the rising physician shortage which, according to the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) is expected to reach 122,000 by 2032.
That, by those particular numbers alone, is not great.
All of Eagle’s surveyed hospitals have a high implementation rate (89%); notably, larger hospitals (i.e. with more than 250 beds) reportedly have even higher implementation rates, landing at about 97.7%.
That’s better, but many benefits are still being overlooked.
Leaders’ reasons for using telemedicine, per Eagle’s study, include “physician specialty support (52.2%), surge specialty support (40.3%), staffing gap support (39.8%), and night shift support (37.1%).” Dermatology, specifically, accounts for top-specialty stats with a percentage of 40.6% on its own.
Telemedicine is being utilized. So, why should institutions succeed with it more often?
Namely, surveyees indicated high patient satisfaction rates; 87.3% reported that their patients were satisfied even when considering modern telemedicine tech hurdles, as many of us may have experienced, ourselves. With room-for-improvement zones like program infrastructure resources, physician response times and better technological integrations under the microscope, Eagle’s hope is that physicians, patients, hospital administrators, nurses, and executives all realistically see telemedicine as a tool for good, especially in an age where not every patient is able to be seen the same ways.
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
