Telemedicine technology and services provider Avel eCare recently launched its Annual Customer Forum and Innovation Summit, focused on driving innovation in the virtual care sector. This first event featured healthcare leaders from around the country and took place in Nashville.
Topics include workforce shortages and burnout, increased access to telemedicine, expanded emergency and critical care services on demand, cybersecurity, waivers and licensure of health from distant.
IT news about healthcare sat down with Doug Duskin, chief executive officer of Avel eCare, to discuss the conference and uncover key themes and lessons learned.
Q. What was the main message you heard at the conference? What are the overarching topics?
ONE. There are three main messages. First, there is a lingering concern in the market around the lack of medical personnel and resources and how to address that. The lack of experienced nurses poses a risk to quality outcomes.
The number of nurses and doctors graduating is declining and many want to work in larger cities where they can maximize the number of patients or conditions they can see. So telemedicine helps close that gap in rural or other markets that may not have enough resources.
The second major theme is acceptance. The health system is finally in a position where the benefits of being able to provide their patients with quality care outweigh any hesitations about having another doctor or a nurse. others work with them, especially through video or voice equipment.
And the third message that I leave out is around the ongoing barriers to telemedicine expansion. Connecting is a challenge for some. There are state licensing issues for doctors, where getting a doctor licensed in many states is a pain.
Overall, health systems are trying to provide high quality care to all their patients, and they’re starting to see that you can’t do that in certain markets without using telemedicine.
Q. What have you learned about expanding access to telemedicine?
ONE. We have seen a significant increase in the number of behavioral health encounters over the past two to three years. This is an area that has grown significantly during the pandemic. In some places, mental health accounts for about two-thirds of telehealth visits. Talk therapy is an obvious use case for telemedicine, and the technology can really create a sense of anonymity for some patients, helping them open up and communicate better.
But there is a big gap in the way telemedicine addresses mental health treatment. If you consider our solutions, we tend to focus on the point of encounter assessment. When someone enters the emergency room, we perform a behavioral health assessment to understand whether the individual should be hospitalized or if they can be sent home.
Then there are other companies that are doing recovery programs. And I think that sometimes the variety of services can create confusion. It’s a reflection of how nascent the market space is today. Over time, you will begin to see things consolidated to best serve the patient community.
Q. The required critical care was on the menu at the show. What came from that discussion?
ONE. If you look at an ICU and you have a surge – whether it’s a pandemic or some other problem – the lack of available EDs to deal with those surges is a problem. .
So there is a shortage of resources. Most organizations use telemedicine to cover overnight shifts, weekends, and holidays. But if you have a surge, you will need more resources during the day. This is another area where telemedicine can help fill gaps and solve problems.
The great thing about on-demand critical care is that it allows health systems to ramp up resources as needed while simultaneously managing budgetary constraints. If you’ve watched the news for the past six months, there’s a financial strain on hospitals because of the fact that they pay more for doctors to fill the void.
The previous 24/7 ICU model for telemedicine was sometimes low cost, especially for smaller or rural health systems. On-demand critical care offers more flexibility. It is not nearly as expensive, but at the same time, it provides care when needed.
Q. Is there a lot of talk about so-called “combined care”, a combination of face-to-face care and virtual care? Many experts believe that is the future of telehealth.
ONE. Telemedicine does not replace having a nurse or doctor put their hands on a patient to provide care – whether it’s surgery or just taking a pulse. Over the next few years, telemedicine will evolve to better support the home hospital concept.
Several hospital censuses have historically counted people within the four walls of the hospital. That has already begun to change, and hospitals are looking for ways to move patients to receive their care at home. In this model, the patient is given dedicated care first, then moved to a telemedicine solution. It’s a natural fit for hybrid care, but the question is: What does technology need?
We’ve done some of this work on a pilot basis, with third-party peripherals to take pulses, look down the throat, and provide other patient readings. But people are still trying to figure out how to do it effectively because the patient’s hand is always needed.
If you can get someone home faster, they usually recover faster and they are less stressed. So we focused on figuring out how to create a solution.
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: [email protected]
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