The telemedicine software platform typically sits at the center of your telemedicine business. So what are the various factors that you need to consider when finalizing your strategy for the telemedicine software solution? Assuming that you have finalized on the business offering, target customer and target market and business model, then you are well positioned to finalize on the telemedicine software.
Features: What are the features you need?
Brainstorm to get a list of all possible features. How do you visualize the telemedicine software working? What are the telemedicine software features required to solve the business problems that you are targeting? What are the unique features that you will help set your apart? You can approach this exercise from a number of angles as listed below:
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Your vision
Visualize all the features that are required for the business problem that you are trying to solve. How do you visualize the patients connecting with providers? A basic telemedicine solution will at least have 3 user roles – patients, providers and administrators. Usually there would be many more roles. Put yourself in the shoes of your each user type and map out the user journey’s.
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Your competitors
It is likely that you already have one or more telemedicine competitors in the market. Explore the solutions they offer and create a wish list of features.
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Your users
One very useful exercise is to actually talk to each of target user types and get their perspectives on what is important to them. This might help you help you unearth some unique perspective that could be the differentiating factor for your telemedicine business.
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Legal/Regulatory Requirements
Regulatory and legal requirements can often have a big say in the feature set your telemedicine product needs to support. So do explore the legal and regulatory requirements that will be applicable to your telemedicine business.
Group the features together based on functionality or modules so it is easier for you to reason and think about them.
Standard Features in a Telemedicine Software Platform
Below is a categorized list of features that you will typically need.
| Telemedicine Software Features |
| Patient Portal |
| Patient Registration |
| Patient Login |
| Reset Password/Forgot Password |
| Provider Listings with detailed profiles |
| Online appointment booking for video consultations |
| Online appointment booking for in-person consultations |
| Access and Update Patient Health Records |
| Access/Download Prescriptions |
| Access/Download Lab Orders |
| Access/Download Consultation Notes |
| Participate in Telemedicine Consultations (Synchronous – Video Consultations, Asynchronous – Text Consultations, Remote Patient Monitoring) |
| Access Patient Educational Content |
| Make Payments Online |
| Synchronous Telemedicine – Video Consultations |
| Online Appointments for Video Consultations |
| Waiting Room based Video Consultations |
| Video Controls (Pause, Mute, Toggle etc) |
| Screen share |
| Multi-user Video Calls |
| Low Bandwidth Capabilities |
| Call Recording |
| Chat and File Sharing |
| Notifications (Email, SMS, Push Notifications) |
| Reminders (Email, SMS, Push Notifications) |
| Asynchronouos Telemedicine – Text Consultations/Patient Questions |
| Asking questions |
| Online payment integration |
| File uploads |
| Followups |
| Patient Records |
| Patient Profile |
| Health Conditions |
| Allergies |
| Medications |
| Hospitalizations |
| Co-morbidities |
| Surgeries |
| Family History |
| Social History |
| Contraindications |
| Vaccinations |
| Heath Trackers – Vitals and hundreds of other trackers that depend on the focus area of your telehealth business |
| Remote Patient Monitoring/Chronic Care Management |
| Care Plans |
| Subscription Payments |
| Bluetooth/Health Device Integrations and Live Synching |
| Patient Engagement |
| Adherence Tracking and Reminders |
| Care Teams |
| Prescriptions |
| Creating prescriptions |
| PDF Downloads/Printing |
| Branding Prescriptions |
| e-Signature |
| Integration with Medication Database |
| Patient Encounter Notes/Treatment Notes |
| SOAP notes |
| Integrate with prescriptions, lab orders, goals, appointments, subscription plans |
| PDF Downloads/Printing |
| Lab Orders |
| Creating prescriptions |
| PDF Downloads/Printing |
| Access to Lab Technicians |
| Appointment Scheduling |
| Provider Calendars/Scheduling: Providers need independent calendars that control their availability |
| Management of Non-Working Days |
| Real time slot management: Listing open slots based on provider availability, booked appointments and other conditions |
| Rescheduling |
| Cancellations |
| Self-service online booking |
| Schedule Manager: An administrative module for administrators to manage the appointments |
| Appointment Reminders |
| Appointment Notifications |
| Pratice Locations/Branches |
| Branch Management – If your telehealth business deals with multiple branches which might be virtual or physical |
| User Roles |
| Support for multiple user roles to be able to restrict functionality |
| Patient Engagement/Notifications |
| Custom notifications over multiple-channels |
| Patient Education |
| Sharing education content with patients |
| Notifications |
| Device Integrations |
| Bluetooth Health Devices: Some health devices provide Bluetooth SDKs and therefore need a mobile app to function |
| Server side integrations: Some health devices do not provide Bluetooth SDKs, but instead sync data to the server via their own companion mobile apps. The telehealth platform can then retrieve the data using the server side APIs provided by the device vendor |
| Apple Health Kit/Google Fit integration |
| Mobile Apps |
| Android and iOS telehealth mobile app for patient (This would share the same feature set as the patient portal and ideally all the features should be available to patients via the telehealth mobile app) |
| Android and iOS telehealth mobile app for providers (This would typically be a subset of the feature set available via the web. Admin function can be restricted to web only) |
| API Access |
| API access: Telemedicine platform APIs are key for integration with external applications that are part of your tech stack |
| Patient Payments |
| Integration with payment gateways: Choose a payment gateway that supports telemedicine applications |
| Patient Credits/Discounts/Refunds: Features to handle marketing and promotions and also refunds which can be a common scenario for telehealth applications |
| Control Panel/Platform Management |
| Provider/User Management: Manage the users/admins/providers of the telehealth application |
| Provider Profiles: Manage provider profiles. Attractive and comprehensive profiles are a key to convincing patients to engage online |
| Department, Practice Locations: Healthcare businesses are typically organization by branch and specialities |
| Payment Management: Handling of online/offline payment features |
| Patient and Provider Legal Terms: Terms and conditions that patients and providers might agree to before using the telemedicine application |
| Compliance, Privacy, Data Storage |
| HIPAA |
| GDPR |
| Data Storage Regulations that are relevant to the country of operation |
| Data Security |
| Data Encryption |
| WebRTC Security |
| PHI Handling |
| Security Infrastructure |
| Other |
| Robustness |
| Scalability |
| Usability |
| Fault Tolerance |
| High Availability |
| Data Backups |
| Technical Support |
Need Help ?
Dawgen Global is an integrated multidisciplinary professional service firm in the Caribbean Region.
We offer services in Assurance, Advisory, Media and Technology . As part of our Technology Solutions offerings we are a ContinuousCare Authorised Reseller in the Caribbean and offers the full suite of Solution within the Dawgen Technologies Division.
For additional information on the Dawgen Technologies ContinuousCare Solution and how we can help you benefit from Telemedicine , Contact us at our Caribbean Head Quarters :Dawgen Towers, 47-49 Trinidad Terrace , New Kingston , Kingston 5, Jamaica Telephone : 876-9265210
Email : [email protected]
