Coming to Terms with Knowledge Management in Telehealth

Abstract

Although telehealth has been used in the health sector for many years, there is still the perception that it is far from reaching its potential. Telehealth outcomes can be improved if knowledge is effectively managed, but this has proved complex to achieve in practice. Systems approaches that take a holistic view and address fundamental issues are likely to result in greater success than focusing solely on software systems. Managing knowledge in telehealth projects draws upon literature on knowledge management, team learning and virtual working. We report on the findings from interviews with telehealth professionals of their experiences and insights on managing knowledge. The major finding is that telehealth projects are functional in nature, focusing on patient diagnosis or training but rarely consider improving knowledge acquisition and sharing. We explain the reasons for this including the lack of understanding of knowledge management concepts that serve as a barrier to improvements. An integrated set of requirements for a telehealth knowledge management system is proposed that has potential to be a facilitator of change in this area. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Distance is no longer a barrier to healthcare services: current state and future trends of telehealth research

“…Moreover, though telehealth can be appropriate for a wide range of healthcare needs such as treating the common cold, flu, headache, insect bites, sore throats and post-diagnosis follow-up, there may be situations that necessitate in-person consultation (Akter et al, 2013b). In such cases, physicians or caregivers should use their best judgment and follow any protocol laid down by service aggregators to decide when and how to arrange an in-person session (Green et al, 2016;Standing et al, 2018a). Such information regarding inperson consultations can be integrated into a hospital's EHR management system (Gu et al, 2019) so that all associated caregivers are better prepared to schedule the required diagnostic test during in-person visits, making the process seamless and reducing staff burnout (Melnick et al, 2020).…”

“…To mitigate the detrimental consequences of telehealth services on patients, hospitals should establish procedures for in-person examinations that include scheduling, coordinating, billing and a contact-free check-in. Simultaneously, doctors and caregivers must explain the aspect of the diagnostic test that will take place, as well as followup considerations and other preparations on the telehealth platform (LeBlanc et al, 2020;Standing et al, 2018a). Although transitioning a telehealth consultation to an in-person examination is not always the best choice for patients, comprehensive communication about the scope of treatment through telehealth platforms and simplifying the check-in process can substantially minimize any adverse impact on service satisfaction.…”

“…The content analysis makes clear that public health organizations are increasingly embedding and using telehealth in their primary healthcare arrangements to reduce healthcare expenses while enhancing supervision of patient health (Chandwani et al, 2018;Khodadad-Saryazdi, 2021;Vlahu-Gjorgievska et al, 2019). To enhance patient care, it is suggested that additional research is done on mechanisms that can enable the integration of EHR data across medical facilities (Green et al, 2016;Standing et al, 2018a), which can be pursued by business scholars with expertise in data analytics, information systems and management operations. Other options include establishing platforms that are scalable and interoperable, guaranteeing a consistent experience for patients, physicians and EHR providers or developing a business model (Lennefer et al, 2020;Mountford, 2019;Watterson et al, 2020).…”

“…Bibliometric analysis, which encapsulates the use of quantitative techniques to analyze a vast volume of published research in a field (Donthu et al, 2021;Mukherjee et al, 2022), can serve as a rigorous technique to enhance the objectivity of systematic literature reviews intending to present a summary of research trends for others to use as a roadmap for future research INTR 33,3 (Baker et al, 2020;Moral-Muñoz et al, 2020;Lim et al, 2022a). It is noteworthy that current reviews on telehealth remains limited (Standing et al, 2018a), with the majority of existing reviews taking a medical informatics lens (Armfield et al, 2014;Pai and Alathur, 2021;Peng et al, 2020;Waqas et al, 2020). In this regard, the performance and intellectual structure of telehealth research in emerging fields outside medicine, such as business, have yet to receive review attention.…”

“…Moreover, telehealth service providers must provide rigorous technical training and continuing support in order to foster technology acceptance among physicians and patients (Paul et al. , 1999; Standing et al ., 2018a, b), which would be a resource-intensive endeavor (Bakshi and Tandon, 2021). Other significant impediments to deploying such services include security certification, online transactions and insurance (Hollander and Carr, 2020; Kim and Kwon, 2019).…”