I was recently reading an article from The Harvard Business Review about the dual sides of telehealth technology in healthcare environments. On the one hand, patients are finding many benefits with telehealth technology. They enjoy the convenience of not having to travel to the doctor’s office for things that might require only a quick diagnosis and perscription for some medecine. On the other hand, doctor’s aren’t fully satisfied with the new technology. They experience digital fatigue and burnout from this new method of delivering healthcare.
The reason for the adoption of telehealth is sound. Patients enjoy it. From the HBR article:
Studies have consistently shown that consumer preference is behind much of this movement. In one recent consumer survey, 94% of people who sampled telehealth, in the form of synchronous virtual visits, for the first time during Covid reported satisfaction with the ease and convenience and expressed interest in other modes of virtual care, such as digital monitoring and at-home lab testing. In healthcare, however, it bears reminding that digital adoption is a two-way street, requiring the satisfaction and buy-in of providers as well as patients.
The same article states that, “In surveys fielded over the past few years, a third or more of physicians regularly report symptoms of burnout, while more than half say those symptoms have increased since the onset of the current public health crisis.”
So the problem isn’t that customers don’t find the technology helpful. The problem is that for whatever reason the users on the healthcare side are having problems utilizing the technology.
Consider this when you’re implementing your own technology in any business. Let’s say you’re in retail and you have a stellar sales team on the floor. You decide to install a new digital signage system that helps advertise products. This system increases sales due to advertisement by $1,000. However, your sales staff finds that customers are interacting more with the screen than with the employees on the floor. As a result, employee generated sales are down $1,500. In this case you’ve got a successful technology installation that is losing money.
That’s super oversimplified, I know. But the logic behind it is what I’m trying to impart. Often with technology the impact isn’t measured in dollars and cents. You have to dig deeper for your ROI. If your customers are locing a new technology, but your employees are losing productivity because of it, that can easily become a new failure.
That’s why it’s so important to bring employees into your process of implementing technology. You want to make sure, first and foremost, that employees will adopt and benefit from new technology. Tailor the new tech to fit into your organization’s workflow. That way you still receive the benefits from customer adoption, while not losing out internally.
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