Virtual care is about to hit a major tipping point — in 2020, investments in virtual care are expected to outpace those in traditional care delivery. While the virtual care market continues to mature, healthcare organizations (HCOs) must develop an enterprisewide strategy to support comprehensive virtual care deployment. We identified three key observations that should inform your virtual care strategy:

  • Patient experience, clinician experience, and interoperability are key differentiators. Patient experience and access to care must be addressed without creating further administrative burden for clinicians. As customer journeys become more fragmented, interoperability becomes paramount for sharing data and ensuring patient safety.
  • Virtual care will impact more than just care delivery. As virtual care further takes root, it will impact other areas such as how health insurance benefits are structured. We have already seen the emergence of new healthcare benefits such as the partnership of Humana and Doctor On Demand for “On Hand,” which is a fully virtual care benefit offering for members.
  • Interest in virtual care continues to grow, but self-triage is undersupported. As patients seek more guidance virtually, patient self-triage is an area for continued investment. To ensure that patients are directed in-network or to the most appropriate setting of care, vendors must support patient symptom evaluation and a seamless transition to a provider to encourage and increase utilization. In the meantime, HCOs may need to identify additional partners to fill this capability gap.

In Forrester’s recent evaluation of the emerging virtual care market, “The Forrester New Wave™: Virtual Care Solutions For Digital Health, Q2 2019,” we identified the 13 most significant vendors in the category. These included 98point6, American Well, Bright.md, CirrusMD, Doctor On Demand, eVisit Telemedicine Solution, InTouch Technologies, MDLIVE, SnapMD, Synzi, Teladoc Health, TytoCare, and Zipnosis.

Based on our comprehensive criteria, Forrester identified Bright.md as the Leader in this space. Healthcare professionals should check out the report to see the detailed findings for each vendor and use this review to select the right partner for their virtual care needs. This New Wave is a follow-up to the “New Tech: Virtual Care, Q1 2019,” which provides a broader survey of the market players.

Use the New Wave to help you evaluate vendors based on your strategy and business needs. You can read the New Wave report here and the preceding New Tech report here.