Telehealth, Upgraded: Solving the Challenges Holding Virtual Care Back

Over the past several years, healthcare organizations have rapidly stood up telehealth capabilities to meet growing demand for virtual care. In many cases, that meant implementing or expanding imperfect “Band-Aid” solutions. Now, with virtual care as a permanent expectation, healthcare leaders must evolve those stopgap approaches into scalable, integrated models that keep pace with both clinical and consumer demands.

Across the board, Healthcare IT consultants are noticing three persistent challenges healthcare organizations face as they continue to evolve their telehealth strategies:

1. Lack of integration between a healthcare facility’s telehealth platform and its EHR and clinical tools
2. No formal telehealth onboarding program to educate and support patients who are new to the technology
3. Lackluster ongoing technical support for clinicians and other virtual care platform end users

Let’s take a closer look at these three telehealth challenges and what’s needed to resolve them for long-term success.

Key Takeaways

1. Connect telehealth to the EHR. Aligning the EHR, patient portal, and scheduling system with the virtual care platform keeps documentation and care coordination in one place.
2. Onboard patients one-on-one. Dedicated support agents help patients who are new to telehealth get set up and keep their appointments.
3. Give clinicians responsive technical support. Fast, clinically aware help desk support keeps platform issues from turning into missed appointments and documentation backlogs.

How to Address Telehealth Challenges Left by Rapid Deployment

Challenge #1 – Lack of telehealth EHR integration

The lack of integration between an organization’s telehealth platform and its EHR and other clinical tools hinders care coordination and patient care delivery. Very often, the fragmented approach that results from patients and providers using multiple tools leads to disjointed care with possible patient care decision-making delay, especially from a clinical care documentation standpoint.

Healthcare organizations should create a one-stop shop for patient care communication and access by completely aligning the EHR, patient portal, and scheduling system with the virtual care platform via an integration engine. To further complement their telehealth platforms, many health systems are adding clinical dictation AI tools, language interpretation services, digital health devices, and remote patient monitoring capabilities to their integrated technology suites. Such integration allows patients to take a more active role in their healthcare journeys— whether scheduling an appointment, receiving reminders, paying off balances, or attending a virtual care appointment.

Together, strong clinical technology integration and support can help healthcare organizations turn telehealth into a vital part of a fully integrated and patient-centered care delivery model.

Challenge #2 – No formal telehealth onboarding program

If healthcare organizations fail to train patients to use their telehealth platforms, patient adoption may be difficult. That’s especially true for those patients who are less technology-savvy.

Convenience is the top reason patients use telehealth, cited by 65% of respondents in a 2024 J.D. Power survey reported by the American Hospital Association. However, older patient populations may be among those challenged by digital literacy gaps that can hinder telehealth adoption. And, without reliable technical support, frustrated patients are less likely to follow through with virtual care appointments or use virtual care in the future, with potentially negative impact on care plan adherence and outcomes.

To overcome literacy gaps and strengthen patient engagement with telehealth, healthcare organizations need to have a reliable telehealth patient onboarding program, despite struggles to internally staff such programs due to ongoing labor shortages. It is possible to encourage patient adoption while mitigating IT help desk overload through the use of outsourced IT support agents who are experienced in telehealth launches and integrations.

Telehealth onboarding programs should be staffed with empathetic, patient, and thorough technical support agents who serve as digital healthcare ambassadors. They should help patients navigate any medical hindrances, such as poor hearing or vision, and carefully walk them through each step of the telehealth onboarding process, including:

1. Finding and accessing the telehealth platform
2. Downloading the platform onto their devices
3. Completing initial setup and customization
4. Navigating the platform, with a walkthrough of each feature

A more thorough, one-on-one telehealth onboarding experience combined with ongoing support allows patients to feel more invested in telehealth and encourages them to remain engaged in both the provider appointments and their overall care plans. As a result, healthcare organizations can experience a deeper return on their telehealth and virtual care platform investments.

Challenge #3 – Lackluster ongoing technical support for clinicians

According to Elsevier’s Clinician of the Future 2025 report, only 30% of clinicians say they have received enough training on AI tools from their institution, a sign that training on new clinical technology often lags behind its rollout. Without reliable and clinically consultative technical support, providers may find that telehealth platform issues start to pile up and create bottlenecks that prevent them from fully utilizing and optimizing virtual care tools. Consequently, providers may be frustrated by:

1. Missed patient appointments
2. Clinical documentation backlogs
3. Delayed referrals
4. Delayed medication authorizations

On the other hand, dynamic and personalized IT support can help telehealth appointments run more efficiently, allowing providers to serve more patients each day. With clinician-specific training, providers can also use telehealth technology to align patient data through the EHR. By increasing patient interactions and technical support, clinicians can maximize revenue without the operational and logistical hurdles of in-person office visits.

In addition, accessible technology can be a viable solution to physician shortages. Telehealth lets organizations extend a limited number of clinicians across more locations and service lines. For resource-strapped healthcare organizations, optimizing telehealth utilization can simultaneously help save operational and overhead costs while bridging gaps in access to care.

How to Make Telehealth a Sustainable Part of Care Delivery

To address industry challenges such as clinician shortages and patient engagement needs, healthcare organizations must optimize long-term telehealth and virtual care utilization strategies. However, doing so requires identifying and addressing the temporary Band-Aid solutions that many provider organizations were forced to take in the interest of quick deployment. Each telehealth platform upgrade is a chance to close all three gaps at once.

Clinically consultative, EHR-certified Tier 1+ service desk agents can help drive a more integrated and strategic telehealth offering that engages patients and providers alike. For healthcare organizations, greater telehealth utilization can help to optimize current IT investments. But most of all, strategic telehealth utilization enhances patient access to care, with more satisfied patients and providers as a result.

FAQs about telehealth challenges

What Are the Most Common Telehealth Challenges?

The three most common telehealth challenges are a telehealth platform that is not integrated with the EHR and other clinical tools, no formal onboarding program for patients who are new to telehealth, and inconsistent technical support for clinicians.

How Do You Integrate Telehealth With an EHR?

Connect the virtual care platform to the EHR, patient portal, and scheduling system through an integration engine, so appointments, documentation, and patient communication stay in one workflow.

To evaluate your telehealth support program, contact the MTS team today to get started.