Covenant Health, a health system based in Knoxville, Tennessee, has had a problem with telemedicine — a shortage of needed specialists in rural communities.
PROBLEM
Covenant Health began its journey with telehealth a decade before the COVID-19 pandemic and is a regional pioneer in virtual care. The health system’s telemedicine stroke program was started in 2012, developing the region’s first comprehensive stroke center.
Dr Mandy Halford, senior vice president and director of medical informatics at Covenant Health said: “This technology, coupled with virtual medical image viewing, enables Covenant Health neurologists. assist ED doctors in rapid diagnosis and emergency treatment of stroke patients. .
“In addition, we received assistance in coordinating referrals to Covenant Health’s comprehensive stroke center for advanced treatment with our interventional neuroradiologists, if needed. ,” she continued. “Clearly this works well for stroke care, so steps have been taken to expand into other specialties for inpatient and emergency virtual care consultations, going beyond COVID-19 pandemic.”
With the rise of consumerism in healthcare and the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, Covenant Health has become more agile in implementing virtual care. Additional services have been rolled out, across all care sites, many of which focus on providing care at the patient’s own convenience.
“For emergency services, primary care, and specialty scheduled online visits have been rolled out and made available,” said Tiffany Cross, Vice President of Clinical Informatics. “At the same time, 24/7 direct-to-consumer virtual urgent care visits have been established. These advancements are enabled through partnerships with three providers.”
For hospitalized patients, telehealth has expanded into critical care services and remote ICU deployments throughout the eastern Tennessee region, said Vice President of Clinical Informatics Chris Skinner.
“This effort has enabled Covenant Health to deliver the highest levels of critical care services during a time of greatest need in the region, just as Delta and Omicron COVID variants hit communities in the region, Skinner added.
SUGGESTIONS
Early on in Covenant Health’s telehealth journey, many providers introduced products to meet virtual care needs; however, many are not integrated into the clinician’s daily workflow, Halford commented.
“We strongly believe that telemedicine should be seen as another tool for providing care and should be an integral part of the overall clinical workflow, at all levels,” she explains. all care sites. “For the majority of Covenant Health’s virtual care lines, this virtual care technology is embedded directly into the EHR workflow.
She continued: “We aim to provide convenient, high-quality, affordable care, and we can deliver on our corporate commitment to put patients first by combining virtual care in all strategic plans”. “We have seen that this innovative and reliable technology allows our teams to extend services to their patient populations, and we continue to see growth in the number of care services available. virtual every year.”
RESULT
The health system continues to see improvements in patient outcomes with the use of virtual care.
Halford reports: “In the behavioral health outpatient setting, we were able to implement individual and group therapeutic virtual wellness visits and have seen a reduction in absenteeism and an improvement in absenteeism. related improvements in the overall plan of care,” Halford reports.
She continued: “For behavioral health needs in a hospital setting, we have implemented virtual care consultations for inpatients and EDs and have seen an improvement in patient support. ED as well as improving the transition of care to behavioral health hospitals, as deemed appropriate.”
For primary care, the health system is delivering services through telemedicine to manage chronic care and continues to see improvements in goals of care. In the tele-ICU, because of its partnership with the bedside team, the organization has seen improvements in ventilator management, quality of care, and ICU length of stay.
“As the volume of virtual care continues to expand across all service lines, we will continue to deliver on our commitment to excellence by putting the patient first and focusing on additional success indicators,” added Halford.
USE FCC AWARD FUNDS
Covenant Health was awarded $987,991 by the FCC’s telehealth grant program. It used the FCC’s telehealth award fund to expand its telehealth infrastructure, enabling expansion across all care locations for the community.
Halford concludes: “We are focused on coordinating patient care throughout the continuum of care, including virtual care, secure messaging and communication to further improve the digital patient experience. seamless,” concluded Halford. “The future of medicine will combine more powerful virtual care services with innovative advances in healthcare technology, and we plan to continue building our existing infrastructure to meet future needs.”
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
