News 12/1/16

Top News

Over 3,000 physicians sign their name to an open letter lambasting AMA’s endorsement of Rep. Tom Price, MD – nominated by President-elect Trump to head HHS when he takes office next year. 

“We believe that in issuing this statement of support for Dr. Price,” the authors write, “the AMA has reneged on a fundamental pledge that we as physicians have taken — to protect and advance care for our patients. We support patient choice. But Dr. Price’s proposed policies threaten to harm our most vulnerable patients and limit their access to healthcare. We cannot support the dismantling of Medicaid, which has helped 15 million Americans gain health coverage since 2014. We oppose Dr. Price’s proposals to reduce funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a critical mechanism by which poor children access preventative care. We wish to protect essential health benefits like treatment for opioid use disorder, prenatal care, and access to contraception.”

The letter’s originators – Manik Chhabra, MD Navin Vij, MD and Jane Zhu, MD, (all clinical scholars at the University of Pennsylvania) – plan to send the letter to AMA and other industry organizations soon. It remains to be seen what, if any, affect such a missive might have on the association’s reception of Price come January. Several physicians have publicly renounced their AMA membership over its endorsement.

Webinars

December 6 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Get Ready for Blockchain’s Disruption.” Sponsored by PokitDok. Presenter: Theodore Tanner, Jr., co-founder and CTO, PokitDok. EHR-to-EHR data exchange alone can’t support healthcare’s move to value-based care and its increased consumer focus. Blockchain will disrupt the interoperability status quo with its capability to support a seamless healthcare experience by centralizing, securing, and orchestrating disparate information. Attendees of this webinar will be able to confidently describe how blockchain works technically, how it’s being used, and the healthcare opportunities it creates. They will also get a preview of DokChain, the first-ever running implementation of blockchain in healthcare.

December 7 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Charting a Course to Digital Transformation – Start Your Journey with a Map and Compass.” Sponsored by Sutherland Healthcare Solutions. Presenters: Jack Phillips, CEO, International Institute for Analytics; Graham Hughes, MD, CEO, Sutherland Healthcare Solutions. The digital era is disrupting every industry and healthcare is no exception. Emerging technologies will introduce challenges and opportunities to transform operations and raise the bar of consumer experience. Success in this new era requires a new way of thinking, new skills, and new technologies to help your organization embrace digital health. In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate how to measure your organization’s analytics maturity and design a strategy to digital transformation.

Announcements and Implementations

Atlanta-based Georgia State University incorporates Azalea Health’s EHR into its simulations and classrooms for programs such as health informatics, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, nutrition, and the graduate nursing informatics program. I had to chuckle when I came across the above picture of GSU students at HIMSS. It features the road sign Mr. H awarded the Metro Atlanta Chamber after the city received the most votes in the “Health IT Capitol of America” reader poll.

Healthwise debuts its Care Coordination app on the Salesforce AppExchange. The app, which integrates with Salesforce’s Health Cloud, connects physicians and patients with evidence-based health education materials.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Staffing and workforce solutions company Cross Country Healthcare acquires US Resources Healthcare – a recruitment processing outsourcing business – for an undisclosed sum. US Resources will likely turn its focus to its three remaining verticals – government, IT, and financial, while CCH will enjoy its latest round of growth. It moved into expanded Boca Raton, FL headquarters several months ago.

People

Clifford Farren, Jr. (IMS Health) joins AbleTo as CFO.

Jeff McHugh (Athenahealth) joins Zotec Partners as vice president of enterprise solutions.

Telemedicine

Thundermist Health Center (RI) offers UnitedHealthcare Medicaid members remote diagnosis and e-consults for skin disorders. The provider and payer partnered with Community Health Center’s Weitzman Institute to set up the teledermatology service.

American Well incorporates Tyto Care’s remote examination tools into its telemedicine platform for employers and health systems.

Government and Politics

CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt suggests ways in which physicians can move forward with MACRA, highlighting technology’s role and subsequent vendor accountability: “MACRA is an opportunity to move the focus away from paperwork and reporting and towards paying for what works. For a variety of reasons, EHRs became an industry before they became a useful tool. The technology community must be held accountable by their customers and make room for new innovators and to give clinicians more freedom and more flexibility to focus on their patients, to practice medicine, and deliver better care.”

Research and Innovation

New research finds that outpatient surgical bone and joint procedures are more cost effective when performed at ambulatory surgical centers rather than hospitals. Researchers attribute the savings, which ranged between 17 and 43 percent for the 1,021 procedures analyzed, to more streamlined care processes. “If orthopaedic practices gained access to an ASC for day surgery,” says lead author Peter Fabricant, MD “they would be able to deliver the same care at a decreased cost, and improve patient satisfaction by offering the convenience of care location options. From the patient and family perspective, care closer to one’s home and family is of higher value.”

Sponsor Updates

• GE Healthcare completes the RSNA Image Share Validation program.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the Orthopaedic Summit December 7-10 in Las Vegas.

Blog Posts

• Nordic mentioned more than any firm for key success attributes in 2016 KLAS perception report (Nordic)
• What the best healthcare IT consultants do at the end of their contracts (Nordic)
• SayIt Wireless Mic for iPhone (NVoq)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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HIStalk Practice Interviews Nancy Ham, CEO, WebPT

Nancy Ham is CEO of Phoenix-based WebPT.

Tell me about yourself and the organization.
I’ve been in the healthcare IT space for more than 20 years now, mostly on the provider-facing side. I’ve really been fortunate to be at the leading edge of many innovations in our industry, such as clinical lab order entry; results reporting; RCM; and more recently, population health analytics, clinical data exchange, and interoperability with Medicity. I’ve had a nice diversity of experience across 20 years of watching our industry digitize, automate, and interconnect. In terms of companies, my experiences range from true startups all the way to a Fortune 500 company. I think healthcare IT is an amazing industry and I feel really privileged to be part of it.

In terms of my current organization, WebPT was founded in 2006 by Heidi and Brad Jannenga. Heidi was a therapist in search of a great product; when she couldn’t find one, her husband Brad created it with her. Fast forward 10 years later to 2016 and WebPT is the leader in providing documentation, PM, and revenue cycle services to the rehab industry, which includes physical, occupational, speech, and other therapy modalities.

I’ve learned that physical therapy alone is a $30 billion industry growing more than 5 percent a year. Growth is being driven by the aging of the population, and from weekend warrior injuries to joint replacements. It’s also growing because of clinical evidence that physical therapy can be more effective and efficient than surgery or opioids for many conditions. Today, WebPT serves almost 9,000 clinics with over 63,000 users all using our true cloud platform to improve their businesses clinically and financially. We are very proud that we have a 99-percent customer retention rate, and we’re really proud that we have created the WebPT community. Together, we work on many initiatives to advance our entire industry – key initiatives like direct access, meaning that patients don’t need a physician referral; and expanding telehealth services to include telerehab options.

What made you want to jump from the world of HIE at Medicity to that of physical therapy and physician practices?
Medicity was focused on solving the problem of creating clinically connected communities in which every caregiver can securely and appropriately see the patient’s longitudinal health record. When you think about population health, spanning the continuum of care, what I was really seeing is a need to interconnect with more outpatient and post-acute locations of service, which very much included physical therapy. I had a burgeoning interest in moving beyond the traditional hospital setting and getting deeper into clinically connected communities, so it was a pretty logical jump for me.

On a personal note, I’ve seen the positive impact of physical therapy on my parents with joint replacements, and on my friends with sports injuries. I’m personally passionate about the WebPT mission, which is helping therapists achieve greatness in practice.

You’ve conveyed a love for WebPT’s workplace culture and the city of Phoenix. As the EHR industry continues to consolidate, how much emphasis should vendors place on culture when it comes to remaining competitive and attracting top talent?
I’ve always believed that culture is the foundation for being competitive. You can’t be a great, innovative, passionate company without great team members. When you think about the current business environment, competition for the best employees has never been fiercer. For us in health IT, it’s doubly challenging because we compete both within the health IT space and with the broader software industry. You take that background, and then you add in the stats around the order of magnitude difference in productivity between a good engineer and a great engineer, and I think the ability to use culture to attract, motivate, and retain the best of the best is mission critical.

From a different perspective, over time as products become more similar, customer service becomes the differentiator. You need a rock-solid culture of serving customers, which is one of our core values around creating raving fans. That really makes a sustained difference in your business and is for us why we have a 99-percent retention rate. I do have to brag a little bit on the point of culture: We’re thrilled WebPT has been recognized as a best place to work five out of the last six years. After a month-plus of being here, I can say for sure it’s vibrant culture that makes it really fun to come to work every day.

I know the company is planning a move to bigger headquarters. How do you plan on helping the company remain in expansion mode over the next several years?
One of the things that definitely attracted me to WebPT was that there are so many ways in which we can grow. Historically, we’ve done pretty well. We’ve been ranked in the Inc. 500 or 5000 each of the past four years, but you have to keep innovating to press forward. Looking ahead, we are helping our current customers with new products such as measuring the actual outcomes of the work that they do. We’re also expanding our market to serve larger organizations such as Medstar Rehabilitation Network and its 50-plus clinics. We’re supporting all of our customers in the move, of course, to value-based care including bundles for comprehensive joint replacement. There is so much opportunity for innovation on the patient engagement side as well.

Have you had a chance to talk with any end users yet? What are their thoughts on the current state of health IT?
They have all the same issues as other providers. They are struggling with revenue pressure and declining reimbursement. They need to prove their ROI through documented outcomes. They’re being prepped and they are prepping for more analytics and business intelligence. They need to connect with other providers to secure referrals and coordinate care.

Given your background, how interested are physical therapists in health information exchange?
Everyone is interested in improving the coordination of care. Certainly, being in bundles around hip and knee replacement is a big use case. Other use cases include post-discharge rehab for strokes or cardiac events. Being interconnected for sharing patient data with the entire care team is of real interest to therapists. HIEs and interoperability are a very hot topic for us. Given my background, it should come as no surprise that it’s an area you’ll see us invest in more in 2017.

How are physical therapists preparing for MACRA? Do they have unique challenges when it comes to adopting and participating in these value-based programs?
Many therapists are small, entrepreneurial businesses. They need a turn-key solution that caters to their unique workflows, which is part of what we provide. If they then ask, “How do I participate in value-based care including MACRA,” they do have a little bit more time than non-specialty physicians to come into the MACRA program, which is good because they need to prepare by aggregating their data and creating benchmarks with which to measure their outcomes.

For our larger enterprise customers, when they think about MACRA, it’s definitely about ROI and clinical outcomes. They also need insightful analytics around their total business. It’s a lot about the data. Outcomes plus analytics will give our customers the vital data they need to be successful in MACRA. It will also enable them to negotiate higher reimbursement with other payers and participation in bundles with physicians.

Do you have any final thoughts?
I’ve learned there are over 200,000 therapists today practicing in outpatient, inpatient, and post-acute settings. Given the factors we talked about earlier, projections are that it’s going to grow by 30 percent by 2024. I’m really excited to help people understand that therapists are an important and growing part of the clinical ecosystem. I’m also excited about all the opportunities to more deeply interconnect the rehab industry via HIE and interoperability with hospitals, providers, and increasingly patients in support of true population health. Most of all, I want to thank all the members of this vibrant WebPT community who have welcomed me and for their incredible support of us, of one another, and this exciting industry.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 11/30/16

Top News

Excellus BlueCross BlueShield will roll out telemedicine services from MDLive to its members in New York beginning January 1. The local news reports some pushback from physicians, which has prompted the payer to invite them to join the telemedicine company’s network. "It’s not to take away from them, but increase availability, accessibility, and timeliness of visits they may not always be able to provide,” explains Excellus BCBS VP and CMO Richard Lockwood, MD. The payer tested out the virtual consult service in an employee pilot program earlier this year. Over 60 percent of those that used the service rated their experience as excellent.

HIStalk Practice Musings

I have been watching coverage of the fires in Eastern Tennessee with a heavy heart, having vacationed in the Gatlinburg area just a few months ago. Deemed the state’s worst wildfire in a century, the area has seen over 15,000 acres within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park burn to the ground, 700 homes destroyed or damaged, and seven confirmed fatalities. Though local Red Cross coordinators have let it be known they have more donations than they know what to do with, I can’t help but wonder how the families that have lost homes and livelihoods will cope heading into Christmas. I’m hopeful that one or two telemedicine companies will take notice and, as they did in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, offer affected citizens free virtual consults.

Webinars

December 6 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Get Ready for Blockchain’s Disruption.” Sponsored by PokitDok. Presenter: Theodore Tanner, Jr., co-founder and CTO, PokitDok. EHR-to-EHR data exchange alone can’t support healthcare’s move to value-based care and its increased consumer focus. Blockchain will disrupt the interoperability status quo with its capability to support a seamless healthcare experience by centralizing, securing, and orchestrating disparate information. Attendees of this webinar will be able to confidently describe how blockchain works technically, how it’s being used, and the healthcare opportunities it creates. They will also get a preview of DokChain, the first-ever running implementation of blockchain in healthcare.

December 7 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Charting a Course to Digital Transformation – Start Your Journey with a Map and Compass.” Sponsored by Sutherland Healthcare Solutions. Presenters: Jack Phillips, CEO, International Institute for Analytics; Graham Hughes, MD, CEO, Sutherland Healthcare Solutions. The digital era is disrupting every industry and healthcare is no exception. Emerging technologies will introduce challenges and opportunities to transform operations and raise the bar of consumer experience. Success in this new era requires a new way of thinking, new skills, and new technologies to help your organization embrace digital health. In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate how to measure your organization’s analytics maturity and design a strategy to digital transformation.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Quartz co-founder Kevin Delaney offers his take on the growing pains startups typically reach when they hit the 150-employee mark. “Our structure and communication undoubtedly could be improved,” he explains, adding that the company now tops 200 employees with plans to add more globally in 2017. “I myself find that it remains an ongoing challenge to add structure without crimping the creativity, speed, and individual empowerment responsible for our success to date.” Consultant and original Netflixer Patty McCord refers to it as the “stand-on-a-chair number. Once a startup leader gets up on a chair to address the staff and someone yells out, ‘We can’t hear you,’ she says, “it’s time to start rethinking how you’re communicating.”

Announcements and Implementations

CompuGroup Medical adds a rehabilitation module focused on physical, occupational, and speech therapy to its WebEHR. The Weston Group, a Pennsylvania-based rehabilitation services company, worked with CGM to develop the module, which it will use at its facilities nationwide.

Modernizing Medicine adds clinical, financial, and benchmarking analytics to its EHR and PM technology. The company has also added Apple Watch functionality to its Pocket Practice smartphone app, giving physicians the ability to view upcoming appointment details with the (almost) flick of a wrist.

DrFirst adds genetics-based e-prescribing capabilities from Translational Software to its Rcopia medication management technology. The new tool will serve up genomic decision support and alerts to drug efficacy, toxicity, and known interactions as part of the physician’s e-prescribing workflow.

People

The Pennsylvania Podiatric Medical Association appoints Maryann Hartzell, DPM (Advanced Podiatry Associates) president.

Greg White (Allscripts) joins PerfectServe as COO.

Telemedicine

Pacific Gas & Electric installs a telemedicine kiosk from LiveHealth Online at its Fresno, CA facility. Employees covered by the company’s Anthem Blue Cross policy can use the virtual care service for a $4.90 co-pay.

Government and Politics

Sen. James Lankford publishes the second edition of his “Federal Fumble: 100 Ways the Government Dropped the Ball” report, which – you guessed it – highlights $247 billion in wasteful and inefficient federal spending. Healthcare-related chapters include “Drug addicts need to chill out,” “While rural hospitals in America close,” “High-priced healthcare for convicted murders,” “Only dropping two newborns is pretty good, right?” and “Two health plans but not for the price of one.”

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 11/29/16

Top News

Media outlets are abuzz with President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Rep. Tom Price, MD (R-GA) secretary of HHS and Seema Verma head of CMS. Price has served as a representative since 2004, and served as Georgia’s first Republican Senate Majority Leader in 2002. An orthopedic surgeon by trade, Price has been a fierce opponent of the ACA, attempting to repeal and replace the legislation multiple times. Verma is president and founder of health policy consulting company SVC, and has extensive experience with Republican-led Medicaid expansion efforts. Both appointments are contingent upon Congressional approval.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

In honor of #GivingTuesday, I encourage you to give to HIStalk’s DonorsChoose efforts. A generous vendor has provided significant matching funds to double the impact of donations made via HIStalk. You can donate as follows:

1. Purchase a gift card in the amount you’d like to donate.
2. Send the gift card by the email option to mr_histalk@67.225.140.230/~histalk (that’s Mr. H’s DonorsChoose account).
3. He’ll be notified of your donation and you can print your own receipt for tax purposes.
4. He’ll pool the money, apply the matching funds, and publicly report on HIStalk.com which projects he funded, with an emphasis on STEM-related projects as the matching funds donor prefers.

Webinars

December 6 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Get Ready for Blockchain’s Disruption.” Sponsored by PokitDok. Presenter: Theodore Tanner, Jr., co-founder and CTO, PokitDok. EHR-to-EHR data exchange alone can’t support healthcare’s move to value-based care and its increased consumer focus. Blockchain will disrupt the interoperability status quo with its capability to support a seamless healthcare experience by centralizing, securing, and orchestrating disparate information. Attendees of this webinar will be able to confidently describe how blockchain works technically, how it’s being used, and the healthcare opportunities it creates. They will also get a preview of DokChain, the first-ever running implementation of blockchain in healthcare.

December 7 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Charting a Course to Digital Transformation – Start Your Journey with a Map and Compass.” Sponsored by Sutherland Healthcare Solutions. Presenters: Jack Phillips, CEO, International Institute for Analytics; Graham Hughes, MD, CEO, Sutherland Healthcare Solutions. The digital era is disrupting every industry and healthcare is no exception. Emerging technologies will introduce challenges and opportunities to transform operations and raise the bar of consumer experience. Success in this new era requires a new way of thinking, new skills, and new technologies to help your organization embrace digital health. In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate how to measure your organization’s analytics maturity and design a strategy to digital transformation.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Orb Health raises a $3.2 million Series A round of funding led by Mt. Vernon Investments. The Phoenix-based company will use the financing to further develop its collaborative care technology, which aggregates data from EHRs, wearables, and other patient engagement tools to better enable providers in their chronic care management initiatives.

Announcements and Implementations

Coordinated Care of Oklahoma deploys Nuance’s PowerShare Network for HIE, enabling its participants to access full imaging records across facilities via the cloud. I interviewed the Norman, OK-based HIE’s chief administrative officer, Brian Yeaman, MD (still a practicing family physician) earlier this month.

InteliScript develops real-time, drug-pricing comparison software that can be incorporated into e-prescribing workflows. The new tool also offers up the most affordable pharmacies closest to a patient’s residence via the EHR.

Surescripts makes available technology that delivers real-time medication adherence-related messages and alerts to physicians via their EHR.

Xerox develops a printer for ambulatory providers capable of securely sharing patient documents via the cloud.

People

Tom Reedinger (Athenahealth) joins Zotec Partners as director of business development, enterprise solutions.

Telemedicine

Hawaii-based KTA Super Stores rolls out telemedicine visits via DocNow at its store in Hilo, with plans to expand the service to additional stores in the coming months. The Hawaii-based telemedicine company opened for business earlier this year and has already signed contracts with several island-based pharmacy chains. State lawmakers passed a bill in July that will require its Medicaid managed care and fee-for-service programs to cover telemedicine services beginning January 1.

Managed services organization Femwell Group Health makes telemedicine capabilities available to its network of Topline MD physician practices in Central and South Florida. The MSO has also added online bill pay and practice management “checkups” to its service line.

Get Real Health adds virtual consult capabilities from VSee to its InstaPHR platform.

Government and Politics

OCR warns providers and business associates that a fake phishing email is being circulated with mock HHS letterhead with the fake signature of OCR Director Jocelyn Samuels. The email links to a website marketing company’s cybersecurity services.

Other

For the Internet activist who has everything: UK retailer Lush markets the “Error 404” bath bomb, with proceeds going to supports groups like Access Now that fight for digital rights and campaign to prevent Internet shutdowns across the globe. It might also be the perfect gift for that practice manager who is trying so hard to keep up with cybersecurity best practices.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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From the Consultant’s Corner 11/29/16

The Potentially Big Business of Consumer-Directed Telehealth

If you think about it, health systems have used limited forms of telehealth for years. Take a typical radiology workflow, for example. Stored digital images are read by radiologists in distant locations, and reports from those radiologists are subsequently reviewed by the ordering physicians. More recently, clinicians have moved from such “store and forward,” asynchronous telehealth to synchronous telehealth that enables teleneurology for stroke victims in community hospitals, and teleICU for monitoring critically ill patients.

Why, then, all the recent excitement about telehealth? The answer is simple: For the first time, the patient is at the center of the decision to use telehealth rather than the clinician. Thus, telehealth is now as much about consumerism as healthcare dollars.

Driving Factors

Although consumerism has been slow to enter the healthcare environment, patient expectations are increasing. An astounding 98 percent of the population has Internet access, and 40 percent of adults have used an on-demand service such as Uber. Patients are looking for both convenience and access. The healthcare system has been a disappointment in both of those areas. Analysts predict a physician shortage of at least 90,000 by 2025. The national average wait time for a family practice physician is already nearing 20 days. Now that patients are paying more healthcare costs due to high-deductible health plans, they are demanding care that meets their convenience expectations.

Patients value high quality care when they want it, which includes having access to care during evenings, weekends, and holidays. According to Merchant Medicine, that’s one reason the number of retail clinics have grown from 258 in 2007 to 1,866 in 2015. In addition, cost-sensitivity means that price transparency and low cost have become as important to patients as whether or not their insurance is accepted. Taken together, these factors have weakened the allegiance to specific physicians in favor of convenience. It should come as little surprise that more than 75 percent of adults say they would use telehealth.

Employers also see the benefit of offering direct-to-consumer telehealth to their employees. The average telehealth visit is $75 less than an office visit, and can also reduce an employee’s time away from the office. More than 70 percent of employers report that they plan to offer telehealth in 2017.

Overcoming Obstacles

If patients and employers want direct-to-consumer telehealth, why hasn’t it taken off faster in traditional healthcare settings? There are four primary reasons:

1. Technology: Although telehealth technology is advancing rapidly, much consumer-facing telehealth is independent from traditional hospital IT infrastructure. Direct-to-consumer telehealth is offered to the market through companies such as Teladoc, Doctor on Demand, and American Well. Since EHR vendors have been busy with implementations, usability, and Meaningful Use, their technology is generally not as advanced as that of independent telehealth vendors. Therefore, bringing sophisticated telehealth into healthcare organizations requires either partnering with one of these vendors or integrating a telehealth platform into current IT infrastructures and clinician workflows. Either way, it is resource-intensive and requires clear strategy, funding, integration, and change management. Despite the complexity, healthcare executives acknowledge it is the wave of the future; the majority list implementing telehealth as a top priority.

2. Reimbursement: To date, Medicare only provides telehealth reimbursement through Medicare Advantage and for rural locations. Commercial insurance coverage is similarly limited. While proponents argue that increasing access at a low cost will improve healthcare quality and cost, payers worry that it may result in overutilization, thereby increasing costs.

3. State regulations: There are numerous interest groups battling over telehealth. Some are trying to restrict access, while others want to increase it. In some states, for example, telehealth can only be used after an in-person relationship with a clinician is established. Other groups are at odds over whether telehealth must include a live video component versus just a telephonic component. With state regulations changing rapidly, it is important to keep abreast of them prior to making significant investments.

4. Physician capacity: Physicians already are burdened with substantial administrative work and packed patient schedules. The waves of regulation from MU, PQRS, and now MACRA’s Quality Payment Program have resulted in enormous “change fatigue.” Even the technophile physician excited about telehealth finds adding new processes, technologies, and workflows daunting. With all that physicians need to do, it’s hard to tell them they must also compete with retail and telehealth vendors through on-demand, consumer-directed telehealth services.

Make no mistake: Deploying consumer-facing telehealth isn’t easy. Organizations need a clear strategy. However, those who figure it out sooner will certainly have an advantage. It’s time to get back to what patients want – convenient access to high-quality healthcare at a fair price from providers they can trust. By better engaging patients through telehealth, the industry should indeed become more efficient and effective.

Nancy Gagliano, MD is CMO of Culbert Healthcare Solutions in Woburn, MA.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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