The Telemedicine Program Design Canvas: a visual tool for planning telemedicine interventions


 Telemedicine has seen widespread adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic. The implementation of telemedicine projects can be complex, with over 75% of telemedicine initiatives failing in the implementation phase. Health organizations that want to adopt telemedicine as part of their healthcare delivery programs struggle to plan and implement sustainable and scalable initiatives effectively. This paper presents the Telemedicine Program Design Canvas - a tool to guide health organizations in planning telemedicine interventions and drive intervention success. It was developed and validated through six workshops with users and stakeholders of telemedicine. Based on the workshops and the lessons learned from the subsequent interventions of these projects, we identified the fourteen key elements that must be addressed while planning and implementing a telemedicine project. We organized these into a simple visual tool that health organizations could use. The fourteen elements include - the Problem, Ecosystem, Patients, Patient Journey, Patient Engagement & Trust, Providers, Provider Training, Provider Engagement, Channels, Technology, Medicines & Diagnostics, Desired Outcomes, Costs, and Revenues. The tool was then tested and validated by applying it with a new group of six telemedicine projects. Overall, the perspectives of 108 users and stakeholders of telemedicine projects, including organizational leadership, doctors, nurses, midwives, community health workers, patients, policymakers, technologists, legal and finance experts, were included in the development of the tool. The Telemedicine Program Design Canvas provides a structured and straightforward method for the rapid prototyping and holistic planning of telemedicine interventions.