(and choosing the right telemedicine company)
Key Takeaways
- A telehealth platform is no longer a pilot. It is a core clinical and operational infrastructure for hospitals
- The best telehealth platforms for hospitals support multi-specialty care, enterprise workflows, and system-level staffing models
- Telemedicine companies differ significantly: some provide clinicians, others provide technology, and some offer integrated models
- Platform maturity (not just video quality) determines speed, scalability, clinician adoption, and ROI
- Hospital leaders should evaluate telehealth platforms using clear criteria tied to strategy, operations, outcomes, and long-term sustainability
How hospitals should evaluate the best telehealth platforms
As specialty access demands grow and physician shortages persist, enterprise virtual care has become a fundamental part of hospital operations and workforce strategy.
At the same time, the market is crowded. Many “best telemedicine company” lists focus on consumer access, pricing, and appointment convenience—valuable for individuals, but not sufficient for hospitals evaluating system-level virtual care infrastructure.
For hospitals, the best telehealth platforms are those that support enterprise deployment across service lines, integrate with core clinical systems, and make outcomes measurable and repeatable.
1. Strategic fit: Does the telehealth platform support system-level care models?
The best telehealth platforms for hospitals align with how care is delivered across the organization, not just within a single department. A strong platform enables consistency across service lines while remaining flexible enough to adapt to different settings and staffing models.
For health systems, this often translates into platforms that can:
- Support multiple specialties and care environments, including ED, inpatient, outpatient, post-acute, hospital-at-home, asynchronous consults, and eConsults
- Scale across hospitals and regions using a shared configuration and governance framework
- Integrate deeply with clinical systems, including the EHR and PACS, enabling remote providers to work from a single, efficient workspace while onsite teams stay in their native workflows
- Enable flexible staffing models, such as shared specialist pools, fractional coverage, or centralized specialty support
Some telehealth platforms, like AmplifyMD, are designed to support multi-specialty, system-wide virtual care models.
2. Operational execution: Can the platform coordinate consults reliably at scale?
A recurring differentiator across hospital-focused competitors is the operational layer: the ability to coordinate consults, ensure readiness, and keep workflows moving in real time—especially in inpatient and emergent settings. Some vendors describe this as consult coordination or “air traffic control” for virtual care operations.
At scale, operational execution depends on the platform’s ability to:
- Reliable consult activation and routing (automation where appropriate, minimal handoffs)
- Role-based workflows for bedside staff, coordinators, and remote clinicians (so responsibilities are explicit)
- Clear escalation paths when a consult cannot be completed as planned (clinical or technical)
- Standardized workflows and feedback loops that improve consistency over time
Operational execution is where many programs either scale smoothly or become dependent on manual workarounds that are difficult to sustain.
3. Financial sustainability: How does the platform enable repeatable ROI?
As virtual care programs mature, financial impact matters as much as clinical performance. The best telemedicine companies support sustainable value, not just short-term coverage fixes.
Financial evaluation often focuses on whether the platform enables:
- Revenue retention, by treating appropriate-acuity patients in-house instead of defaulting to transfers
- Increased provider capacity, allowing clinicians to care for more patients without increasing burnout
- Workflow automation, reducing administrative overhead through integrated coordination and standardized processes
- Improved resource utilization, enabling the existing clinical workforce to support care across multiple sites
4. Outcomes and speed to value: Can the platform deliver measurable improvements quickly?
Extended pilots and slow ramp-ups are no longer acceptable. The best telehealth platforms demonstrate predictable deployment and measurable improvements early in the lifecycle.
At this stage, hospital leaders should look for:
- Predictable implementation, with documented timelines and clearly defined milestones
- Embedded analytics and reporting, providing visibility into utilization, response times, and key metrics based on the service line’s KPIs
- Demonstrated metric improvement, supported by referenceable outcomes and replicable workflows
- Independent validation, such as KLAS research or comparable third-party assessment approaches
5. Adoption and clinician experience: Will providers use it—and prefer it?
Telehealth adoption depends on how easily clinicians can work within existing workflows. Platforms that introduce friction—extra logins, unclear responsibilities, or unreliable support—struggle to gain sustained use. In contrast, platforms designed around clinical workflows enable both bedside teams and remote specialists to work efficiently across multiple sites.
High-adoption platforms provide:
- EHR-native workflows for bedside teams, minimizing extra logins and duplicate steps
- A consistent workspace for remote clinicians, with complete clinical context in one place
- Clear separation of workflows, so onsite teams stay in the EHR while remote specialists use a purpose-built environment
- 24/7 technical and operational support, to avoid downtime becoming clinical downtime
Competitors that focus on bedside virtual care emphasize that workflow design and reliability are inseparable from adoption.
6. Technology foundation: Is the telehealth platform built for reliability and the future?
A notable theme across hospital-oriented platforms is reliability, endpoint flexibility, and enterprise integration.
The platform’s technology foundation must deliver enterprise-grade reliability and scalability, including:
- Modern, configurable architecture for high-volume enterprise environments
- Deep, bidirectional EHR integration and interoperability (including PACS where relevant)
- Hardware/endpoint flexibility (not tethered to a single cart or device strategy)
- Operational safeguards, security & compliance, such as uptime expectations, proactive monitoring, and third-party certifications (e.g., SOC 2 Type II, HITRUST CSF)
What the best telehealth platforms have in common
Across the market, hospital-aligned telehealth platforms share core characteristics:
- Enterprise deployment across specialties and care settings
- Repeatable clinical, operational, and financial value
- Measurable outcomes with predictable time-to-value
- High adoption driven by workflow integration and usability
- A reliable, scalable, integrated technology foundation
The strongest platforms make virtual care a seamless part of clinical operations—not a standalone system or separate workflow.
Where AmplifyMD fits among today’s telehealth platforms
AmplifyMD was built specifically for hospitals and health systems as an enterprise telehealth platform supporting multiple clinical programs across the care continuum. The platform integrates with leading EHRs, automates virtual care workflows, and provides real-time analytics, with optional clinical coverage across more than 15 specialties.
This approach allows organizations to consolidate virtual care operations, expand access efficiently, and support long-term system strategy rather than isolated use cases. More detail on AmplifyMD’s multi-specialty approach is available here: https://amplifymd.com/medical-specialties/
Conclusion: What matters most when evaluating telehealth companies
For hospitals evaluating the best telehealth platforms—or comparing telehealth companies and telemedicine companies—the most important considerations extend beyond feature lists.
Leaders should prioritize:
- Strategic alignment with system-level care delivery models
- Operational execution and coordination at scale
- Clear, repeatable financial and operational value
- Proven outcomes with predictable time-to-value
- Clinician adoption enabled by workflow integration and reliability
- A modern, scalable foundation supported by independent validation and standards
Telehealth platforms that support multiple specialties, integrate deeply into existing workflows, and use automation to streamline coordination are often the strongest fit for hospitals building durable, long-term virtual care strategies.
