Healthcare & Telehealth
Equipping Your Team for IT Challenges and Opportunities through Training in Healthcare
As life returns to a new normal after the pandemic, telemedicine is set to evolve and continue enhancing patient health access. The post-pandemic landscape will likely feature a hybrid model, blending on-site visits with remote care to meet patient needs more efficiently. This shift underscores the importance of telemedicine as a fundamental component of healthcare, making it an indispensable tool for broadening access and improving patient outcomes.
However, the pandemic has also exposed significant infrastructure challenges in telemedicine's IT systems. Addressing these challenges requires a workforce well-versed in health IT. By enhancing the health IT literacy of computer systems professionals, many current obstacles in telemedicine and telehealth can be overcome, paving the way for more robust and reliable healthcare delivery.
Essential Technical Requirements for Telehealth
The telehealth industry is technologically advanced enough to deliver effective care, but outdated regulatory and reimbursement structures hinder it. Legacy technology further slows progress, necessitating highly trained IT professionals to address 21st-century challenges in telemedicine. Improved technology infrastructure can ease the integration of telemedicine platforms with insurance companies, enhancing support for telehealth services. Moreover, a highly secure cloud infrastructure is essential for transmitting sensitive medical data, including medical records, complex MRI or CT scan data, and information from health monitoring apps.
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There are three significant challenges the industry faces that IT training can address:
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Protecting against cyberattacks.
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Deploying secure.
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HIPAA-compliant telemedicine with advanced networking.
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Upskilling current employees to keep pace with emerging technologies in telehealth.
Addressing these challenges will result in a robust IT infrastructure that effectively supports telehealth. Such an infrastructure will ensure stable, secure network connectivity, effective software management, skilled IT professionals, reliable procurement and service-level agreements (SLAs), and comprehensive user training for security. These components are crucial for hospitals to serve patients via telehealth effectively and can be achieved through enhanced IT training.
Protecting Your Patients Means Securing Your Data
While telemedicine offers excellent convenience, it also introduces security and privacy vulnerabilities for patients and networks. Encryption is crucial to ensure telemedicine visits are HIPAA-compliant, while a robust cybersecurity infrastructure is essential for hospitals to protect against cyberattacks that could disrupt care.
Defending Against Emerging Threats in Telehealth
Data security, as well as network and systems security, are paramount. However, telehealth introduces unique challenges, including browser-based technologies, video and audio chats, and internal communication platforms. These platforms must be HIPAA compliant to meet federal guidelines, and solutions are available from various software companies, such as Microsoft.
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Moreover, video calls, which can be stored and recorded, require patient permission. Increasingly, complex medical data, such as imaging and test results, are analyzed remotely. This presents a significant challenge for health IT: to encrypt data while ensuring the safety of both patients and networks, and to guarantee that patient data can be transmitted easily and efficiently.
Secure Your Data with Comprehensive Security Training
Chauster UpSkilling addresses data security challenges in telemedicine by equipping IT professionals with essential skills for the telehealth industry. Beyond enhancing network and systems security, IT professionals must also improve user access management, end-user security training, and other governance issues to ensure robust and comprehensive data protection.
Chauster UpSkilling offers training courses to support telehealth data security, including:
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A workforce with enhanced health IT literacy in computer systems can overcome many challenges facing telemedicine and telehealth today.
Telehealth Depends on Rapid and Reliable Infrastructure
Beyond data, the challenges for telehealth are also concerned with managing and servicing hardware – that is, maintaining infrastructure (systems, networks, and devices). While hospitals are moving to electronic health records (EHR), EHR systems are not always fully integrated with telemedicine software, which can cause problems. Telehealth IT providers can help by ensuring that telemedicine software involves the integration of electronic health records with telemedicine software for properly documented, updated visits and continuity of care. Moreover, an efficient infrastructure saves hospitals time and money, making it easier for healthcare providers to do their jobs.
Third-Party Providers Depend on Rapid, Reliable Systems
Telemedicine depends on third-party platforms that require fast and secure infrastructure, including virtual private networks (VPNs), virtual machines running the software, mobile devices, and a robust, secure internet connection.
Telehealth platforms are designed to be user-friendly and include third-party solutions for provider-patient communication and reimbursement management, all of which are HIPAA compliant. Despite solid data management, infrastructure challenges such as security, network connectivity, device management, and system resilience remain. If the infrastructure fails, telehealth services are disrupted.
IT Training Is Essential for Critical Infrastructure
Third-party platforms depend on the speed and reliability of the underlying network and systems. Keeping your systems updated and operational is crucial to the effectiveness of telemedicine software.
Chauster UpSkilling supports healthcare IT professionals with essential networking and systems administration training for Microsoft and Cisco certifications and skills-based training.
Modern Desktop Administrator Associate certification equips professionals to deploy, manage, configure, monitor, and upgrade Windows 10 effectively.
Comprehensive understanding of deploying and managing Microsoft 365 while mastering tenant-level administration and the nuances of cloud and hybrid environments.
Demonstrate fundamental knowledge of cloud-based solutions for enhancing productivity and collaboration, whether in office environments, remote settings, or a hybrid combination.
Comprehensive associate-level training and certification focused on modern networking and IT infrastructure solutions and technologies.
Demonstrate proficiency in all the core aspects of implementing and operating an enterprise network's core technologies.
Design collaboration solutions, encompassing the deployment of core collaboration, networking technologies, and addresses objectives from each domain, ensuring your readiness.
Telehealth Requires Support for Multiple Devices
More Devices Require More Support
While infrastructure and data are crucial, barriers arise if healthcare providers or patients need access to the system. Telehealth simplifies interactions, allowing providers to work with patients on any device.
Telehealth professionals must ensure device security and system compatibility across various devices. Health IT professionals must also support healthcare providers by being knowledgeable about multiple operating systems and hardware.
Beyond data, the challenges for telehealth are also concerned with managing and servicing hardware – that is, maintaining infrastructure (systems, networks, and devices). While hospitals are moving to electronic health records (EHR), EHR systems are not always fully integrated with telemedicine software, which can cause problems. Telehealth IT providers can help by ensuring that telemedicine software involves the integration of electronic health records with telemedicine software for properly documented, updated visits and continuity of care. Moreover, an efficient infrastructure saves hospitals time and money, making it easier for healthcare providers to do their jobs.
It Training Improves Device Support
​In a large, platform-diverse healthcare environment, IT technicians require extensive knowledge of operating systems, browsers, and the fundamentals of systems and networks for effective troubleshooting. Chauster UpSkilling provides technician training to support all platforms and systems through vendor-neutral and skills-based user management training.
The first step of your professional IT journey. It’s the ideal foundational certification to start a career working with cutting-edge information technologies.
Certified individual has the skills and knowledge needed to take on a pivotal role in building, managing, and protecting the critical asset of the data network.
Essential tools for enhancing network security and stability, but they require skilled cybersecurity professionals to configure and manage effectively.
Active Directory has provided the solution to that technological problem, and most sysadmins know how to use it.
A comprehensive overview of identity management in the AWS Cloud, covering the fundamentals from beginner to advanced level.
In a large, platform-diverse healthcare environment, IT technicians require extensive knowledge of operating systems, browsers, and the fundamentals of systems and networks for effective troubleshooting. Chauster UpSkilling provides technician training to support all platforms and systems through vendor-neutral and skills-based user management training.
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COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of telemedicine in the medical industry. With this shift in care delivery, it's crucial to establish the foundational elements for successful health IT:
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Secure, Stable Infrastructure: A robust IT infrastructure is essential for telehealth, providing reliable and secure network connectivity.
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Skilled IT Professionals: Competent health IT professionals must support the numerous devices utilized in modern healthcare systems.
A solid IT system must be in place before a hospital can serve patients effectively via telehealth. Much of this infrastructure involves the fundamental aspects of information technology and its optimal use. This is where Chauster UpSkilling steps in, offering training to develop the skills of healthcare IT professionals and helping them support telemedicine effectively.
IT Training: A Vital Element of Telehealth
