Optimizing Ongoing Telemedicine: An Internal Communicator’s Guide to Engaging Medical Providers

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The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in new opportunities for telemedicine as a viable option for medical care in the United States, but its optimal use by medical providers often remains unachieved. Because the benefits of virtual care best come to patients through providers, internal communications campaigns need to engage providers in optimal telemedicine use. This qualitative study undertook in-depth interviews with medical communicators and providers from several healthcare systems to understand their experience of telemedicine adoption during COVID-19 and afterward. These interviews’ findings suggest that providers during the pandemic most often valued ease of use and efficiency in adopting virtual care technology, and that communicators primarily used an educational frame to engage them in that adoption. These findings then informed the creation of a guide of internal communications objectives to help future campaigns engage medical providers in their respective telemedicine use. In conclusion, both the research findings and the guide that they informed are only exploratory, and in time will need of further study to better understand the fast-developing needs of optimal telemedicine use.

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