What’s Your Plan B? Facing Your Telehealth Technology Anxiety

Telemedicine is technology-based.  And people still have a big deal with technology anxiety.  Anxiety over the technology is the biggest hurdle we face when we do telemedicine training on equipment.

I’m sure we’re not alone.

The conventional wisdom is that practice makes perfect.  Getting people to use the equipment on a regular basis helps to lower anxiety.

The snag comes when IT issues arise.  We’ve all had meetings “dump out” on us, calls that wouldn’t connect, peripherals that wouldn’t display.  Some of these are undoubtedly user error and can be fixed quickly. Seasoned telehealth users take it in stride but the anxious among us throw their hands up and say, “See, I told you it wouldn’t work!  This is why I don’t like this stuff.”

How do we help those people?  The people we are trying to reach the most…our end-users.  They can be extremely influential since negativity resonates more than positivity.  When was the last time you came to work and heard people talking about “how well things work around here?”

Another snag in our rural setting is IT support at clinics and community health centers.  Larger sites like hospitals have in-house IT support but small clinics tend to contract IT support.  Contracted IT support can’t be available in a pinch when the call goes down or when the unit was moved to a room without a “hot” jack.

I believe in the 80/20 rule.  It basically states that 80% of the effects flow from 20% of the causes.  For example, 80% of IT issues related to telehealth come from 20% of known issues or user-errors.  If you address that 20% it can effectively reduce the majority of errors.  I think a majority of the 20% list are issues that can be resolved without a trained IT person on-site.

In addition to hands-on training users need a back up plan.  Checklists are a good idea. Make a list of your most common issues and a plan to address them.  Make sure the end-user can address them without having to call IT support.

We developed a training matrix (open this link to view) designed to “graduate” users from novice to super user.  It can be self-directed or part of a preceptor-led program.  Once users become super-users they can become a resource for other trainees.

Keep an eye out for our series of “Dealing with Telemedicine Anxiety” posts in this space soon.