EP357: Standing Up Telehealth That Actually Advances Providers' Core Business, With Liliana Petrova

Standing Up Telehealth That Advances Your Core Business, With Liliana Petrova. Why Most Telehealth Programs Fail to Move Beyond a Single Visit. Episode 357.

Stacey Richter talks with Liliana Petrova, CEO of The Petrova Experience and former director of customer experience at JetBlue, about why so many telehealth programs stall out as a disconnected "check the box" service—and what it actually takes to integrate telehealth into an organization's core clinical workflow and business strategy.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ Why telehealth programs treated as a one-time technology install, rather than a strategic imperative, rarely get real adoption from patients or clinicians

✅ Why cross-disciplinary "telehealth boards" with executive-level authority are essential to building a program that lasts

✅ How the role of IT needs to evolve from help-desk support to a core part of delivering technology-augmented care

✅ Why identifying a physician ambassador internally helps drive clinician adoption of telehealth

✅ Why systematically collecting patient feedback is a surprisingly rare practice, even at "patient-centric" health systems

✅ Why patient navigation may be the single most important lever for telehealth success

WHY THIS MATTERS

When organizations judge telehealth's value using unreliable anecdotal data—like low usage rates driven by a buried link and a clunky scheduling system—they wrongly conclude patients and clinicians don't want telehealth, and pull funding instead of fixing the experience. Petrova's framework shows what it takes to build a telehealth program that survives past the initial rollout and actually integrates into how care gets delivered.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

EP332 with Tony DiGioia, MD: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

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00:00 Introduction.

06:59 Who should be on the telehealth board to incorporate telehealth successfully?

08:44 What is the population that you're serving, and how does telehealth serve that population?

09:45 "When they think of this as a project versus a program or a strategic imperative, then there is no business case."

11:49 "How do you integrate telehealth in your core business?"

12:32 What does a CIO need to do to be best equipped to serve their organization?

14:05 Why are CIOs and CFOs naturally in conflict these days?

15:30 Why is it important to have a physician be an ambassador for telehealth implementation?

17:05 Why is it important to utilize patient feedback properly?

18:37 Why must the patient own their own health?

20:29 "The key is, if you start at the strategic level with cross-functional leaders, then the working team will also be cross-functional."

21:49 "You won't have a successful telehealth experience if you don't think through the end-to-end experience."

23:40 Who is the digital navigator in implementing telehealth?

24:55 What is a digital navigator, and how does it show up in the telehealth journey?

30:55 Why is it important to have continuous growth in telehealth?