With costs falling and video quality rapidly improving, more healthcare providers are taking a serious look at videoconferencing for telemedicine, helping to standardize the field while also extending the reach of healthcare professionals, according to a report from Frost & Sullivan. However, factors including staff training and lack of third-party reimbursement are holding back wider growth, the London-based research firm says.

"The costs of telemedicine videoconferencing systems and transmission service are not a major barrier to their deployments any more," Frost & Sullivan research analyst Iwona Petruczynik says in a press release. "In the last two years, there has been a significant reduction in prices of equipment and a substantial improvement in endpoint functionality, especially video quality."

These developments now offer vendors of "visual collaboration" technology a market for "off-the-shelf" videoconferencing equipment rather than having to custom-design each installation, the Frost report says. "This will represent a 'foot in the door' for visual collaboration manufacturers because they are not only familiarizing healthcare professionals with videoconferencing, but also introducing their dedicated pieces of equipment," Petruczynik says.

However, Petruczynik notes that vendors will have to offer added value in certain markets in order to prevent videoconferencing from becoming commoditized. (We wonder why commoditization wouldn't be a good thing for healthcare, though, an industry sorely in need of standardized technologies that can improve access and efficiency at relatively low cost.)

Other barriers to greater adoption of telemedicine include resistance to change, new staff training needs, integration with electronic medical records and questions about who pays for the technology. "In addition, many potential adopters of telemedicine are witnessing objections from their medical staff that fears that they will be replaced by new and more efficient practices brought by telemedicine programs," Petruczynik offers.

For more:
- read this Healthcare IT News story
- see this Frost & Sullivan press release

Related Articles:
Telehealth takes off as evidence grows that it can improve care, save money
State lawmakers approve insurance mandate for telemedicine
Despite benefits, telemedicine barriers remain high