Why telemedicine will eventually need to drop the "tele"

The best technology disappears.

For example, when you do a Google search, you’re not thinking about how the search engine’s algorithm affects your results. It’s just second nature that the technology is there and that it’ll do what you expect.

Similarly, telemedicine or telehealth won’t really arrive until we get to the point where we can drop the “tele” and just think of it as healthcare, said Harry Kim, senior director of Hewlett-Packard’s healthcare group, speaking at the American Telemedicine Association‘s annual conference.

And we’re not there yet, or really even all that close. Having the right technology is only part of it.

“It’s a business model question,” Kim said. “How do you drive sustainability and adoption?”

Kim likened the telemedicine industry to the air travel industry just after the Wright brothers’ first flight. “We can be building an airplane and showing people that we can fly, but we’ll never succeed unless we have airports and air traffic control,” he said.

That means improving work flow and security. The key is to embed telemedicine applications so thoroughly into the care delivery process that patients and consumers are just as comfortable with care in the virtual world as in the physical world.

“If you can get to that level of engagement using telehealth, you can establish platforms for innovation,” Kim said.

This is where “reverse innovation” could come in, according to Kim. It’s likely that developing countries may, out of necessity, figure out the best ways to integrate telemedicine into their healthcare systems, and more developed economies like the U.S. will pick up on those best practices.