The New Medicine Revolution Telemedicine

Projection Memo

This memo serves to project the volume that will be encountered at a tele-medicine operation. Of course, projections do not always hold true but they are usually closed if prepared correctly. However, the projection process must be done carefully and in an adept manner so that the proper workforce is on hand or is at least at the ready if activity spikes and the current staff on hand cannot handle the volume. When it comes to any sort of medicine or healthcare operation, it is important to keep wait times to a minimum and the customers happy. As such, a strong customer service mindset and proper projection methods should be in place. While keeping things lean and mean can seem attractive from a money standpoint, doing so can create a firestorm when the volume and overall lack of timely service starts to emerge.

Analysis

When it comes to projecting volume for a call center or customer service center in general, it is all about what has happened recently and what happened at the same time last year. For example, if it is common for there to be a spike right before a holiday because people want to get their medicine orders in or get a medical checkup for a condition they are concerned about. As such, one can expect there to be a lot of calls on the last few days before the holiday because people are getting checked out, getting drug prescriptions and tracking the same. This would be an example of a projection made on a prior year's volume and activity. However, there can also be instances that are year-specific. For example, if a certain strain of viral bronchitis is ripping through America and the medicines involved are heavily used, this can lead to a spike in calls that is independent or the normal ebbs and flows in volume for a given year. Obviously, spikes within a year and patterns from year to year can intersect or be different from time to time. Sometimes, there will be instances that are impossible to predict. This can even include things in the news like the hedge fund "genius" that decided to spike the price of an anti-parasitic drug from $13.50 a pill to $750 (Mitchell & Helsel, 2015).

Generally speaking, telemedicine is making a strong entry into the market because it provides people an alternative to the conventional and normal ways of getting medical care. For example, people in remote areas that do not have a lot of money or time to get medical care can get service of a fairly high quality without having to leave their home. Of course, the tele-medicine phenomenon cannot replace medical care that has to be done in person. However, for minor things that are not as pressing or urgent, it presents another link in the proverbial medical care chain that can be relied upon to help get medical care to those who need it including those that are in remote areas or that are tied up in the office, for example (Smydo, 2014). These sentiments are echoed by Alok Saboo when it says that "the benefit is not pulling them away from a comfortable environment they are in unless they have a real medical emergency." The use of high-definition cameras and internet technology makes all of this possible for both the patients and the doctors. Indeed, even the common smartphones of today have high definition video cameras that are of at least 720p video quality.