Most consumers of healthcare have experienced some difficulty in providing care for family and friends.
PROBLEM
Patient access is a priority for AdventHealth, a health system based in Altamonte Springs, Florida. For the health system, improving patient care begins with meeting them where they need to be.
“Finding solutions to deliver the right care to the right patient, at the right place and time is key,” said Ashley Bard, director of IT, care navigation and virtual care technology, at AdventHealth. imperative to stay ahead of the ever-changing landscape.” . “In recent years, users of our healthcare services have had the ability to purchase services, through marketplaces, and many other tools offered through individual payers and platforms.
She continued: “To ensure we deliver the highest quality services to our recipients, AdventHealth has embarked on a journey to deliver telehealth services that can aid in the care process. ongoing care, through COVID and beyond.” “Our journey started well before COVID; we leveraged video visits to offset the growing need for urgent care and find ways to reduce overuse of emergency departments.”
This is a space that is still in its “infancy” for the industry, she added, and is not widely adopted nationally because drug standards are not well documented for those use cases. This.
“To mitigate this, we went through a process of remote health assessment throughout the continuum, where we began to leverage other technology to refer patients through other means. : inpatient consultation, remote patient monitoring and ultimately, at-home services come first.” she speaks.
“By partnering with multiple providers, we were able to create a service delivery landscape on AdventHealth that could address telemedicine needs and reduce time-of-care across the network,” she continued. “This allows our providers to monitor patients with chronic conditions while they live their daily lives but can manage their post-discharge needs through the use of the portal. take care of Vivify.”
This reduces the need for multiple follow-up appointments, while allowing transparency in the progress of the care plan.
“Amwell has become our partner in both video visits and inpatient use cases,” says Bard. “Video visits have increased dramatically with COVID accounting for nearly 75% of our outpatient visits during COVID. It quickly expanded into outpatient and educational services that allowed us to provide care. take care of patients right where they are.
She continued: “This allows us to continue serving our people during COVID but has also become a standard in care delivery. “Leveraging Amwell in our inpatient setting during COVID allows providers to work through isolation restrictions and ensures we keep our team members safe.” I’m on the front lines.”
Bard said Telehealth will continue to grow in the healthcare industry and create opportunities for patients to get care where they need it and the way they want it.
“In the digital world we live in, it’s imperative that patients and consumers of our services connect with the access they need to care, not just through regulatory requirements. but also integrated into their daily care plans,” she notes.
PROPOSE
Bard argues that telehealth technology, while not new to the industry, can still be viewed and used as ancillary products.
“Finding ways to integrate technology into the standard practice of clinicians is essential for long-term adoption,” she explains. “Having a separation between virtual service delivery and clinical records creates a poor experience for consumers, increases clinical risk, and makes it difficult to navigate the continuum of care.
“Our providers focus on integration within the EHR, digital front-door platform, and connectivity of clinical care operations,” she added. “Focusing on these areas allows us to improve access to care for our patients by leveraging existing tools for self-scheduling and improving clinical outcomes through care management resources.”
MARKET
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MEET CHALLENGES ONLY
After selecting telehealth providers, AdventHealth began by forming a cross-functional administration team. It solicits their feedback on the top workflows that deliver the most value to consumers and clinicians.
Ensuring the right representation from revenue, clinical, legal, IT, and operations is essential to a successful platform launch, says Bard.
“Formalizing project plans including planning, exploring, designing, building, testing, activating and supporting tasks was imperative to ensure we were not short of things,” she explains. any piece in the jigsaw puzzle”. “Continuous optimization efforts to continue to build bridges are essential to stay relevant across different use cases within our organization and with our community partners.
She added: “Through consistent assessment of operational processes, we are able to identify ongoing needs and gaps that allow us to further expand and optimize our healthcare footprint. health from afar”.
RESULT
Increasing access to care through reduced scheduling throughput is one of the prominent metrics AdventHealth achieves by providing video visits. Easy access with video hits gained; Bard reports that continuing to focus and put effort into operating an integrated care approach is an ongoing endeavor.
“For the inpatient setting, we were able to reduce the time of care for patients who needed consultation and who needed to be assessed prior to transfer,” she says. “The ability to consult and evaluate patients remotely allows our service providers to reduce travel time between facilities during on-demand rotation and improve quality of care.
She continued: “With remote patient monitoring, we have seen a 60% reduction in hospital admissions for people who regularly visit the emergency department for chronic illnesses. “Leveraging home devices to monitor patients and follow them through a clinical pathway allows us to intervene early and reduce hospital visits during and after completion of the program.”
