Telehealth and Virtual Care: Innovative to Indispensable
Virtual care and telehealth are no longer seen as merely an innovative method of delivering healthcare; technology is now indispensable to protecting patients, staff, and PPE resources amid the coronavirus pandemic. In a recent Harvard Medical School blog, Lee H. Schwamm, MD, shared that “telehealth, the virtual care platforms that allow health care professionals and patients to meet by phone or video chat, seems tailor-made for this moment in time… The current crisis makes virtual care solutions like telehealth an indispensable tool.” He believes that the role of telehealth is vital to our country as “it can help flatten the curve of infections and help us to deploy medical staff and lifesaving equipment wisely.”
Telehealth and Virtual Care: Convenient to Critical
Many home health care agencies are overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic while also attempting to address PDGM changes and staffing shortages. These forces are unfortunately disrupting agency operations and the ongoing delivery of care – while also putting an agency’s patients, staff, and PPE supply at risk. Telehealth and virtual care are no longer seen as a more convenient way to engage patients; for home health agencies, this technology is critical to enabling staff to continue to “go out into the community” without putting themselves (nor their patients) at further risk for infection.
With Synzi’s telehealth apps and virtual care platform, agencies are:
- Overcoming barriers to in-person visits by using virtual visits to frequently check-in with at-risk patients
- Addressing non-compliance by scheduling a cadence of condition-specific messaging to encourage medication adherence
- Acknowledging patients’ desire for factual information about COVID-19 by sending out tips and updates regarding preventative measures
Virtual care is also helping agencies actively minimize patients’ visits to the Emergency Department and rehospitalizations, especially at a time when many ER visits involve a patient with COVID-19-like symptoms. With Synzi’s virtual care communication platform, a home health agency can provide patients (and their family caregivers) with immediate access to the agency’s available nurses for support via virtual visits or messaging. Depending on the situation, staff can “see and solve” the patient’s issue without needing to send a nurse to the patient’s home or transferring the patient to a care facility.
With Synzi’s platform, agency staff continue to safely serve as the front line for patient and family caregivers and offer expert clinical support, course of care guidance, coaching and care management when needed most during these times.