Excellence in Practice — Key Qualities of Successful Telehealth Programs

Abstract

When I was asked to create a new column within Telehealth and Medicine Today that focused on “Excellence in Practice,” I began to reflect on one of my favorite books, Jim Collins’ Good to Great. If you have not read it yet, I highly recommend it. It provided a guiding philosophy for my personal approach to leadership and building successful teams. For those not familiar with the book, Good to Great provides a review of key shared characteristics of companies that went from “good to great” organizations based on financial performance. Accordingly, I thought a similar review would be a good approach to assessing excellence in the practice of telehealth care delivery. Key qualities that can facilitate a good-to-great transition in telehealth delivery include patient-centeredness, high quality care, collaborative approaches, sustainable financial models, and accountability.