Since it launched its virtual care telemedicine program in October 2016, Mission Health in Asheville, North Carolina, has completed 1,200 patient visits. In November 2017, the provider organization saw its highest overall use with 178 total visits; 155 of those were treated via its Mission Virtual Clinic program and 23 were triaged out for additional evaluation and treatment.
"Since July 2017, we have seen steady growth in the use of Mission Virtual Clinic," said Steve North, MD, clinical director, Mission Virtual Clinic, and a family physician at Mission Health.
The provider organization uses Cerner for its EHR and Zipnosis for telemedicine.
"I believe this growth is due to a combination of increased marketing to the community, increased community acceptance of the care delivery, and increased provider acceptance resulting in fewer referrals out," said North.
Mission Health now is recommending Mission Virtual Clinic in combination with its primary care practices, North added.
Beginning this month, patients who are on insurance plans offered by Mission Health Partners will be able to log into their insurance account and access the Mission Virtual Clinic platform. The organization believes this will help patients see Mission Virtual Clinic as an integrated part of the comprehensive care offered through its health system and ACO.
"The Mission Virtual Clinic is online convenient care for common illnesses from the comfort of the patient's home for only $25, no matter the type of insurance," North explained.
Because of more and more success stories like Mission Health, telemedicine is on the rise. This month has brought several new developments on the telehealth front, as vendors look to capitalize on the recent momentum of virtual care. Among them: InTouch Health, which has expanded its telemedicine offerings with an eye toward both direct-to-consumer delivery and in-house providers, and Teladoc, which debuted an integrated mobile app with a single, patient-centered point of access to answer a wide array of medical needs.
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North believes, based on Mission Health's experience, that the technology-based way of caring for patients will expand in the future and become more important.
"The integration of virtual care into all aspects of medical care will continue to grow as patients and providers become more comfortable with the modalities used to deliver this care," he said.
"Successful integration of Mission Virtual Clinic into our health system will be seen when our primary care triage nurses and on-call providers recommend Mission Virtual Clinic as a treatment option for patients and we see a decrease in the office visits for the acute conditions treated through Mission Virtual Clinic," said North.
Source: Healthcare IT News (View full article)
Posted by Dan Corcoran on January 16, 2018 06:48 AM
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