Dr Joseph Kvedar: Medical Leadership Needs to Take Lead on New Technologies

Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, vice president of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare, stresses the importance of medical leadership in promoting mHealth and telemedicine in order to get physicians comfortable with these new technologies.

Transcript (modified)

How do you suggest getting physicians who might be resisting mHealth and telemedicine on board with these technologies?

Medical leaders in any organization have to believe that this is their future and lead their troops there. Those issues of reimbursement, those issues of workflow are being solved. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have released a code for non—face-to-face care, the new accountable care organizations rules that came out have an emphasis on telehealth and meaningful use, Stage 3 has an emphasis on telehealth, and so these things are starting to converge. And although the current landscape has still some questions, the future is very clear.

And certainly in our own organization, the medical leadership has stepped up to the plate and said “we’re going to have to get there.” We know this is going to happen, and it’s driving change throughout our organization. Our organization is responsible for half of a million lives so that certainly helps; we have all the right integrated medical records, we have all the right building blocks. But there’s still a leap of faith required. It may not be in 2020, but the next few years are going to require medical leadership.