Virtual Care: Transforming the Way We See Our Providers

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Posted By: Roberta Mullin November 6, 2019

In this monthly series we are seeking out the transforming technology of Virtual Care. How does virtual care fit into what we know as telemedicine?  What are the newest innovations and products in virtual care? For telemedicine policy and reimbursement issues, read our regular reporting on Telehealth on RCM Answers.

Hashtags to follow for updates on virtual care:

To Listen:

As telemedicine evolves and demand increases, ongoing legislation to improve virtual care technology adoption and improve reimbursement are rapidly unfolding. Keeping up with the changes and dispelling the myths from the realities is a full-time effort. Join our all-star line-up of presenters for this informative virtual panel discussion that will help you make sense of the current telemedicine landscape, offer valuable virtual care delivery insights, and consider best practices for telemedicine adoption and stakeholder buy-in. The panel will also forecast where telemedicine is headed in the coming year.

Industry News:

Leading Expert in Internal Medicine and Diabetes, Dr. Gregory Peterson, Joins AMC Health’s Clinical Leadership Team as Chief Medical Director to Enhance Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Solutions
AMC Health (@AMCHealth) has announced Dr. Gregory Peterson, DO, FACP, as Chief Medical Director, has joined their clinical leadership team. Dr. Peterson, a practicing physician, will be leading AMC Health’s efforts to develop focused telehealth interventions to proactively manage chronic disease.

CHC Health Partners with Catalyst Healthcare and Pack4U to Provide Virtual Pharmacist Services Targeting Medication Adherence Improvement
CHC Health has announced a strategic partnership with Catalyst Healthcare, an award-winning technology company, and Pack4U for delivery of connected care at home, to provide virtual pharmacist services for improving medication adherence and patient health outcomes.

Crossover Health Launches Connected System of Health
Recently at the HLTH conference, Crossover Health (@crossoverhealth) launched its Connected System of Health. The new offering enables self-insured employers to deliver comprehensive primary care services, alongside care management and coordination of secondary care, from a digital-first, national medical group. The focus of the Connected System of Health is to deliver lower cost, higher quality, and best experience healthcare anytime, anywhere to a national population of members.

Bright.md Unveils Product Enhancements for Optimized Patient-Centric Care
Bolstering its efforts to help healthcare systems stay competitive in a landscape increasingly populated with disruptive new entrants and tech giants, Bright.md (@Bright_Health), the health care delivery automation company, has added new functionality and content to its award-winning asynchronous virtual care platform, SmartExam.

The Innovation Studio at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Announces Winners of Digital Health Lab Demo Day
The Innovation Studio at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) (@ChildrensLA) announced the winners of its first ever Digital Health Lab Demo Day, the culmination of a six-month venture to develop, incubate and implement virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mobile gaming solutions to improve care for pediatric patients and providers in the pediatric healthcare space. The five winners will receive $20,000 each in seed grants and the opportunity to pilot their innovations at CHLA.

Philips extends AI capabilities for high acuity virtual care venues with launch of Sentry Score
Royal Philips (@Philips), a global leader in health technology, announced the launch of Sentry Score, the newest addition to the suite of Clinical Performance Applications in the Philips eCareManager enterprise telehealth software platform. Sentry Score is a predictive algorithm for the adult intensive care unit that shows a patient’s probability of receiving an intervention within 60 minutes.

To Read:

Synzi
Elevating Care: How Virtual Care Helps Agencies Deliver Health Care and Life Care – According to the Joint Commission, home health providers should increasingly collaborate with hospitals, SNFs, physicians, and pharmacists to achieve optimal health outcomes for their patients – especially during transitions of care. Evidence indicates that patient outcomes can be enhanced by seamless communication and coordination amongst all care team members.

Why Secure Messaging is Safer Than Texting – Texting is a quick and easy way to communicate with colleagues and patients. Home health providers appreciate the convenience of using text messaging to confirm appointments, answer questions, and address concerns with fellow staff members and their case load. However, text messaging should not be used when patient data – ePHI – is being shared. An agency places itself and its patients at risk when sending ePHI via unencrypted text messaging.

GlobalMed
Telemedicine and the Patient Education Gap – If you regularly follow virtual care news, you might have seen a recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It asked nearly 1,000 adult respondents if they use their smartphone to complete 10 healthcare-related tasks. For some people, the results seemed to confirm that patients do not like virtual services, since “access video calls with providers” ranked dead last at 10 percent.

12 Ways Telehealth is Saving Small Hospitals – Today’s hospitals are under pressure. As community hubs of healthcare, they are tasked with delivering expert medical care across emergency departments, outpatient practices, surgical suites, labs, radiology departments, intensive care units and more. That in itself is a tall order. But consider that they’re also asked to:

Eliminating Treatment Delays with Telestroke – A few years ago, former Bisbee, Arizona Mayor Jack Porter had a stroke that left him unable to talk or move his left leg or left arm. At Bisbee’s Copper Queen Community Hospital’s emergency room, a CT scan showed a clot forming on the right side of Porter’s brain. But there was no neurologist at the hospital. So the hospital sent the scan to a stroke specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix using GlobalMed virtual solutions. Porter was immediately treated with an injectable drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) – and within 15 minutes, he was able to climb off his ER bed and walk around the room. Today he says, “I didn’t have a stroke. I had a stroke of luck.”

Several more interesting articles on Virtual Care have been posted on GlobalMed, click on the links below to check them out.

Events:

HLTH: Create Health’s Future – Twitter Highlights

The American Telemedicine Association Events
ATA is a non-profit association based in Washington DC with a membership network of more than 10,000 industry leaders and healthcare professionals. We are a leading telehealth association helping to transform healthcare by improving the quality, equity and affordability of healthcare throughout the world. Find their next event.

Defining the industry according to the AAPF

Telemedicine is the practice of medicine using technology to deliver care at a distance. It occurs using a telecommunications infrastructure between a patient (at an originating or spoke site) and a physician or other practitioner licensed to practice medicine (at a distant or hub site).

Telehealth refers to a broad collection of electronic and telecommunications technologies that support health care delivery and services from distant locations. Telehealth technologies support virtual medical, health, and education services.

Virtual Care is a patient service model for healthcare providers.