Where virtual care meets value-based care

Gary Hamilton, CEO of InteliChart, a provider of patient engagement technology, believes three things about virtual care deserve more attention:

• Telehealth services can provide healthcare providers with the opportunity and ability to reach a broader population group – and can serve as disease prevention tools for these populations.

• Telemedicine tools can help physicians and their care teams better manage patient care and associated workflow so their patients can stay healthy.

• Telehealth, through improved patient engagement technology, can be the key to creating successful preventive care programs – programs that drive value-based healthcare reimbursement models.

We sat down with Hamilton to discuss how telemedicine can directly relate to disease prevention, preventive care and value-based care.

Q: You say telemedicine can serve as a “disease prevention tool” through increased patient engagement. Please elaborate on this concept further.

A. From a disease prevention perspective, the more people have access to healthcare, the more people with chronic conditions will be properly treated, meaning more diseases can be prevented. Telehealth can help us reach a population of patients with chronic diseases who simply do not have adequate access to healthcare providers for a variety of reasons, including cost, transportation, and time.

Furthermore, telehealth has the potential to significantly increase access to care for rural patients and patients experiencing social determinants of health problems. Telehealth allows patients to see providers at times that are more convenient for their own busy schedules and generally cost less than an in-person visit.

Increasing access to care for patients is the first step in managing chronic conditions. Many patient groups do not see their healthcare providers until a health problem arises, and that approach sometimes results in expensive emergency department visits for these patients.

Additionally, telehealth offers the potential to promote greater healthcare equity among underserved communities through broader access to care. Telehealth can serve as a continuous access point for care for people in the early stages of chronic conditions.

Q: You suggest that telehealth through improved patient engagement technology could be the key to creating successful preventive care programs. How come?

A. Ultimately, it is the provider’s responsibility to generate interest and involvement in patients. When patient involvement is lacking, it is because the patient has had insufficient access to care, or because the patient has not had committed involvement. Either way, healthcare providers need to become more innovative in their approach to treating these patients.

If the provider can digitally manage one group of patients with automation in a way that keeps them engaged and on track, the provider can spend more time on office visits for patients who need more human interaction. It is about identifying opportunities for interventions that do not have to be carried out within the four walls of the organization.

In this regard, virtual providers identify additional opportunities for intervention that are supported and sustained by the communication, management, and engagement that have occurred to date. Telehealth is what creates this opportunity in the first place.

Q: With these two perspectives in mind, how can telehealth fit into the importance of preventive care in value-based healthcare reimbursement models?

A. Because this is value-based care, there are many opportunities to involve group settings where patients are managed collectively and where group discussions take place with healthcare providers. An example is group guidance for nutrition and diabetes management.

For someone who has just been diagnosed with diabetes, there is so much to unpack because the disease cannot simply be cured with a pill. Medications can help, but patients generally still need to make significant changes to their lifestyle, activity level, weight management, and diet. Moreover, there are numerous consequences associated with diabetes, such as high cholesterol and other cardiovascular diseases.

People are only patients for a small portion of their lives, in terms of face-to-face time with healthcare providers, so being able to manage people via telehealth on their own time in a way that is convenient for them can promote significantly greater engagement .

Taking a step outside of healthcare for a moment, when we look at the growing use and popularity of food services like Uber Eats, DoorDash and Instacart, it speaks to the lengths people will go to for the simple factor of convenience. They don’t want to go to the restaurant anymore; they want the restaurant to come to them.

It is no different in healthcare. If we cannot reach patients in a way that is convenient for them, we will face the same access and engagement issues we have seen in the past. This means that telehealth offers a great opportunity. If we can manage patients at the front end of their diagnosis, and continue that management longitudinally, it will have a significant impact on the escalation of patients’ chronic conditions and whether they are managed.

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