American Well Benefits of Online Care for patients, health providers, and health insurance companies a) Benefits for patients With Online Care wait times are drastically reduced from days to hours or minutes and patients do not need to travel to the clinic. This service can be accessed at home providing privacy as well as protection from infections that can be contracted from other patients in the waiting area. The service is much cheaper compared to clinic visits. Patients can also instantly seek second opinion. There are no time constraints and PCPs are available on-demand with greater choice. The patients can easily manage and access their medical records and information online. Online care will allow for immediate professional …show more content…
The research done by AW shows positive results and there is a clear demand for using online services amongst patients and health providers (Refer case Exhibit 5). It is also said that many patients are comfortable searching online for health advice and using health-related websites. Anyone who has a phone, desktop, webcam and an internet connection can access this service online. The proprietary and sophisticated technology platform enables patients and physicians to communicate easily using the phone, video conference or online chat. After logging-in the physicians available are automatically matched with patient’s symptoms and needs. Thus helping patients choose the right physician as well as save time in researching and choosing a PCP. It also has convenient features like asynchronous communication or switching between online chat and phone without any time lag. Features like the prescreening tool and being able to view and sign up into a virtual queue are also very convenient and attractive. The service solves many problems for everyone involved - patients, health providers and health insurance companies. b) Target customer and service delivery channel The business to business model will work successfully as there are clear advantages for insurance companies and AW in this model. The insurance company can serve its members better, attract non-members
It excludes the option of face-to-face communication during examinations. Finally, telehealth focuses on educational and research purposes involving all types of caregivers with telecommunication between patient and health professionals. Health care delivery in its use of information, records, communication, and will continue to grow with the Internet. The rapid expansion of information technology into daily life and business has healthcare delivery begin to adopt and optimize the use of technology.
Telehealth has become a preferred method of healthcare delivery for many patients and healthcare professionals alike. Some key benefits include its convenience and cost effectiveness. It also allows patients to play a more active role in their own healthcare, which has been found to dramatically increase patient outcomes. While research suggests that the advantages of telehealth outweigh the disadvantages, it is important to note that not everyone would benefit from this form of technology. It is crucial for the patient’s healthcare team to assess if this method of healthcare delivery is appropriate for that individual patient. In today’s society, staying current on the latest technologies is extremely important. Although telehealth
The benefits of telehealth consultations are immeasurable; clients are able to access a knowledgeable health care professional and receive a telephone triage/assessment and recommendations. This allows the patient to have immediate access to good health advice and quicker solutions. Telemedicine is one of the many vehicles of telehealth; for example, the cardiologist orders an outpatient Holter Monitor trial to evaluate arrhythmias. The technician calls the patient at the sign of any abnormal rhythm and investigate the activity performed when the reading fluctuation then the reported is communicated to the cardiologist. If warranted, the cardiology staff will contact the patient with instructions schedule an immediate appointment. Telehealth services resources would benefit the client in this next example, an individual’s come in for a sick visit expecting a prescription to be written for their illness; they receive informative instructions because of the nature of the
When patients leave from appointments with their physicians, or are discharged from the hospital, they are responsible for their care at home. Oftentimes, patients are non-compliant with their treatment plan given to them by their clinician due to lack of understanding, miscommunication or faulty understanding of the treatment plan, lack of access to facilities or requirement of additional guidance. This creates safety issues and causes negative outcomes in the patients’ health. This is where telehealth comes into play to help to continuously monitor patients and provide the assistance needed to maintain optimal patient function. According Cassandra, Graves, and Mooney (2013) telehealth would certainly reduce readmission rates for chronic conditions by giving patients early interventions, serve wider geographic areas, improve patient outcome, provide better services to patients and allow better time management for
Patient portals offer online access available 24/7. A portal opens up the door to communication and information sharing between physicians, nurses and patients. This provides a direct communication where a patient is no longer waiting for a phone call about test results, which could increase anxiety to some. The results would present
As technology continues to improve, many communication issues that patients and health care provider experienced with communication has become less of a problem. In the past, patients experience many problems with communication which affected the quality of care patients received due to communication issues with health care providers. Due to technology improvements, many patients and health care facilities have improved the communication between providers and patients resulting in better communication, better quality of care and improved trust among patients in providers. The technology improvement made in the healthcare field has occurred in the form of multimedia improvements, websites, and various applications.
These objectives assist Dr. Faber to provide quality care by sending reminders to patients about their upcoming appointments, so that patients can adhere to their appointment better. Also, with drug formulary check, Dr. Faber can check if a medication is covered by the patient’s insurance before sending the prescription to a pharmacy. In addition, Dr. Faber can provide education resources to a patient to increase patients’ involvement in their care. Moreover, when Dr. Faber refers a patient to another doctor, a summary of the care provided to that patient can be given to the referred doctor to prevent duplications, which leads to saving costs. Furthermore, the data that Dr. Faber gathers can be used for research to improve the quality of
This form of communication is developing every day with new inventions and ideas that are created to try and make things easier and more efficient for patients and staff. This communication is very important in the health care field. Using technology and internet can be a big help it is a quick and easy way to transfer information about patients to other doctors or staff. There can be issues with sending private information and files over the internet such as the chance that information can get into the wrong hands. If that happens then the patients’ privacy has been breached. When using email always use formal wording and never use slang, it is unprofessional and it can be misinterpreted. You also have to make sure you use this form of communication in the correct way e.g. you would not email one of your patients to let them know they are terminally ill as this would be the wrong type of communication and very unprofessional. In this report I have explained the importance of effective communication. The four methods that I have discussed are written communication, non verbal, verbal and computerized. From this report it has allowed me to understand how important effective communication is within health care and that if the correct communication is not given it can really have disastrous effects on patients in many
For patients with chronic health conditions, or life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer, virtual medical encounters foster a greater sense of comfort and familiarity with their physicians. Even before they have their first face-to-face appointment with a new physician, they can take a virtual tour of the medical facility, ask questions via an EHR patient portal and in some instances connect with other patients experiencing similar journeys. All of these benefits come with a great potential to improve patient outcomes, and often reduce the overall cost of care by almost $90 per visit. Studies show that four out of ten patients admit they would skip seeing a doctor if they did not have access to a remote appointment, which could increase risks and potentially exacerbate treatment or recovery.
Patients and their families can log into the portal anytime to recall the visit and follow up plan (Crane, 2014). Those patients who take multiple medication are easily able to keep track of their medication and request a refill. Patient are engaged as they log in to manage their medications, view labs, or to view a secure message. Studies have shown that patients with portals have more adherence to receiving influenza shots and mammograms as these patients receive important reminders via secure messaging (Goldzweing, 2013). Nowadays, patients want to be part of their medical care and hence improve quality of life. With access to patient data, patient are also willing to learn more about their disease process. Therefor, portal also provides patient with educational materials to understand the disease and treatment plan. Involving patient in their own care will result in better outcomes and adherence to treatment plan. Another result of portal is cost saving. For example, “the secure messaging feature of the patient portal could result in saving of $0.62 per appointment reminder, $1.75 per phone call to patients, and $2.69 for each lab result delivery” (Emont, 2011). While the amount may appear to be small, but it adds up to the overall
Through videoconferencing, Telehealth are able to give immediate diagnosis for a patient who needs urgent care (Saqui et al., 2011). A lot of effort is involve before a patient could meet with his or her doctor such as making an appointment, sorting his or her schedule and so on and so forth. By the time the person with health concern meets with his or her doctor the illness might already aggravated; consequently, the health care system through Telehealth provides a quicker and more efficient way on determining the type and seriousness of the patients and illness without leaving the comfort of their homes. By contacting Telehealth as soon as a person notices some irregularities in the person’s normal body functions that indicates that he may or may not be ill, enable that person who called to act immediately preventing the illness from advancing any further or on the other hand be reassured that there’s nothing to worry about. Furthermore, Telehealth also made the monitoring on recovering patients at their homes faster, the registered nurse in-charge of monitoring the patient can guide the patient in his recovery process through a streaming media. Any concerns that may arise in the recovery process can be solved a lot quicker, the patient can leave a message or phoned and the health care provider will respond to it as soon as possible stating the fact that Telehealth service is available 24 hours a day.
The delivery of health care has always been influenced by technological developments and innovations. This is particularly true in modern health care professionals where they are obsessed with technology and rush to apply them. One of the most recent applications of ICT – Information and computer technology- is telehealth. Telehealth is the use of communication, diagnostic and information technology to provide health care when patients and providers are geographically separated [2], Technologies include videoconferencing, the internet, store -and-forward imaging, streaming media, terrestrial and wireless communications. Telehealth could be as simple as two health professionals discussing a case over the telephone or as
It is important to understand that patients are very satisfied with electronic health systems. For example, patients see a vast improvement in the speed at which they are being seen when they go their doctors’ office. Patients no longer have to wait on their physicians for hours due to the fact that their information can be readily available to their physicians when they come to see them. Moreover, all their information is transparent to their health care provider since all their data is in electronic form.
The future trends in health care are limitless. From using applications that perform EKG’s to robot-assisted surgery, the rapid expansion of technology applications in health care is astounding. Advancing technology also pushes the boundaries of health care in its ability to integrate health care information. The integration of health care information is critical to the effective, efficient delivery of quality care in a now fragmented health care system. This paper will assess how the internet or any new forms of electronic communication can be used as an external delivery source of communicating patient-specific information, address the impact of distance delivery on health care, how these communication issues impact health care today and
ONLINE CARE AND ITS POTENTIAL Communication : The Interaction between the Doctor and Patient can be immensely improved , where the patient can provide their feedback , acknowledgment and condition via email instead of scheduling new appointment Choice of Doctors: The Patients can choose which doctors want to be seen there by giving them an option to pick doctors of their choice based on their experience and reviews Second Opinion: The patient can take an immediate second opinion if in case of doubt. There by eliminating ones cynicism about their illness Social Stigma: The concept of Social stigma is completely removed as customer can have privacy as he can book the appointment meet the doctor from