Telehealth is big right now. Seems like everyone is getting in the game to collect some of the sector's growing revenue — including organizations not known for being in the healthcare space.
As such, Salesforce, a company better known for helping organizations manage their customer relationships, is now a provider of telehealth services. Earlier this month, the company announced its new telehealth solution for Salesforce Health Cloud, which enables "two-way video chat that gives patients the ability to connect face-to-face with their care teams from any mobile device" — the stereotypical telehealth solution.
According to a statement by the company, Salesforce caregiver clients currently use Health Cloud to "get a complete view of their patients, manage their care holistically and engage with them in new ways." Apparently, with this service and Salesforce's new two-way video chat capabilities, the company is banking on the possibility that their client providers will be able to deliver "more timely, convenient and contextual care, increasing overall patient satisfaction."
A big assumption — and a lofty goal, of course — for a company not clearly established in the healthcare space. Here's why this matters to Salesforce: Almost 200 million smartphones are in use in the United States today, and this trend is changing consumers' expectations across all industries, including how they want to interact with their healthcare providers.
The firm points out its recent sponsored study, "2016 Connected Patient Report," that 62 percent of U.S. respondents with health insurance and a primary care provider would be open to virtual-care treatments, such as a video conference call for nonurgent matters. The company's own research tells the company what it planned to do with its research and development money.
Telehealth, as a concept, is a big deal and has the potential to eventually results in billions of additional annual revenue for those who are in the game. While Salesforce will position this as a move to enhance patient relations and better serve its user base, the trend upward is obvious. According to multiple projections and reports, the U.S. telehealth market size was valued at $572 million in 2014, a full two years ago, and is expected to reach $2.8 billion by 2022, according to Grand View Research Inc.
Rising demand for centralization of healthcare administration and enhanced quality and safety of the applications, enhancing demand for mobile technologies and the internet by people along with rising adoption of in-home care by patients and a reduction in hospital visits are expected to propel the growth over the forecast period.
One example showing the growth of the market points to why Salesforce and others are making the move: The Rhode Island Partnership for Home Care reported that in 2014 that more than 20,000 citizens wanted home care, leading to about 1 million visits by healthcare providers.
Salesforce is banking on numbers like this, suggesting that telehealth matters because "when care teams connect with patients through two-way video chat, (the telehealth technology) automatically pulls up the patient's medical profile, including cases, records and family data, so that providers can provide highly personalized and contextualized support."
From a business perspective, Salesforce is correct about one thing with its telehealth approach: Telehealth solutions can be used for scenarios ranging from health coaching and education and post-discharge care to replacing existing nurse call lines. This ultimately increases quality of care, saves time, lowers costs associated with expensive doctor or emergency room visits, and reduces readmission penalties for providers.
Ultimately, telehealth services, according to the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, improve care delivery to patients.
"Patients are, first and foremost, consumers who increasingly use mobile devices in many aspects of their lives. Healthcare is no different, and healthcare organizations and professionals should actively be seeking to increase mobile patient engagement," said Lynne Dunbrack, research vice president for IDC Health Insights, in a statement. "Incorporating mobile engagement into patient relationship management solutions is a natural evolution that the market is demanding."
Salesforce Health Cloud was released earlier this year as a patient relationship management solution that provides a view of the patient, data-enabled patient management and improved patient engagement. This launch, and the company's foray into telehealth services, is likely the biggest name to go here and signals a great deal more activity for the sector in the near term as it lays this gauntlet on healthcare's ground.
