Telehealth seminar set March 26

How many patients complain about long stays in doctors’ waiting rooms? Almost all of them, yet many visits are for minor ailments like nagging coughs, sore throats or common colds. On top of that, there are more than 83 million millennials in the United States and nearly all of them have smartphones, spending more than five hours a day on social media, according to Pew Research Center. These younger patients are looking for new ways to handle their healthcare needs.

Telehealth provides an answer to the dilemma of long patient waits and sharing germs in waiting rooms, and the desire for new ways to connect with medical care. Using a mobile health app and a smartphone, medical care can become an on-demand, consumer-facing event.

With a telehealth care app, consumers can connect with a healthcare provider from their PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone, creating an immediate and open channel for a primary care visit. This gives the consumer the freedom to choose the location and time to access telehealth, making it more convenient, and boosting patient engagement and satisfaction levels.

While telehealth in different forms has been around for years, confusion and fears have kept many healthcare providers from embracing it on Delmarva. A special seminar, Demystifying Barriers to Telehealth is set for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday, March 26, at Fairfield Inn & Suites, Rehoboth Beach. The four-hour seminar provides expert information on everything from how to get started to what legal precautions must be taken and how the healthcare provider gets paid. Presenting businesses are SecureNetMD, a leader in secure digital HIPAA-compliant healthcare solutions; Star-Med, an industry leader in health information management; and Healthcare Operations Management Enterprise, a proactive business management solutions company for medical practices. 

Speakers  are Richard Kajim, a telehealth consultant with Howard University; Andrew Wilson, a healthcare compliance attorney with Morris James LLP; Susan Voltz, director of telehealth for Nemours Children’s Health System; and Carolyn Morris, director of telehealth planning with the Delaware Telehealth Coalition.

Tickets are $20. For more information or to register, go to www.thinksecurenet.com/seminar.