![]() What exactly is telemedicine and how does it work? ![]() And the growing use of electronic medical records makes medical follow-up quicker and more efficient. We’re planning to continue to study and understand the way that this affects patient access to care and convenience, including during the pandemic as we further expand to more e-visit options.The rapidly expanding field of telemedicine is making it easier than ever for patients to receive prompt, convenient medical attention. Reed: This has been a really productive partnership between the Division of Research, our technology group, and the operational and front-line clinical leaders. What other questions would you like to research about e-visits? The fact that we already had an e-visit platform allowed us to quickly pivot to it during the pandemic. We knew there would be a huge volume of questions and concerns related to COVID-19. Can you explain how?īhargava: In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, we developed an innovative platform to allow our members to get their COVID-19 concerns and symptoms managed. The e-visit platform has been expanded for use in the COVID-19 pandemic. Mary Reed, DrPH, research scientist, Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. We were pleased with the finding that we are providing effective and safe care with e-visits. The exclusion criteria built into e-visits direct patients to higher level of care when needed, and our physicians use the smart sets developed to manage patients within the e-visit. ![]() We are really happy with this success rate.Īs part of this study, we also did a sampling of patient charts and found no evidence of quality concerns for patients who used the e-visit system. However, when 81% do not message their clinician nor need a follow-up visit, e-visits are confirmed as a successful mode for providing care. We know that some patients do need to come back for follow-up care with any type of visit. With this study, we found that we provided patients with an additional, convenient option for getting timely care, and most of the time they needed no follow-up within 7 days. What were you hoping to find out with this analysis?īhargava: When we design a new care system, it is essential to ensure that it is efficient and provides an excellent care experience that is clinically safe. In contrast, the ones we studied here all actually had hands-on physician involvement. The term e-visit or virtual visit may also refer to an online experience managed solely by an algorithm. Other virtual visits include appointments to talk with a physician by phone, which has been available at Kaiser Permanente since at least 2006, or by video visit, which was started in 2015. Reed: The e-visit exists in an ecosystem of multiple ways to get care at Kaiser Permanente, both virtual and in-person. Physicians can do a quick assessment and within an average of 2 to 3 minutes take care of the clinical issue. There’s a turnaround time of 2 hours or less for a physician to review your concern and to have your prescriptions waiting, your lab orders placed, and instructions or advice for you - that’s the beauty of an e-visit.įrom the physician’s point of view, we have access to the patient’s electronic medical record along with the patient’s submitted responses to concise questionnaires. They provide quick and safe care for our patients who prefer to do things online. ![]() What is an e-visit and how does it differ from other virtual visits available from Kaiser Permanente? Reena Bhargava, MD, internist with The Permanente Medical Group.īhargava: E-visits were launched at Kaiser Permanente Northern California in July 2018. The authors examined 21,070 e-visits and found 81% did not involve any kind of follow-up visit during the following week.īhargava and coauthor Mary Reed, DrPH, a senior research scientist with the Division of Research, discussed the findings. The study, published March 24 in JAMA Network Open, evaluated e-visit use during the second half of 2019, before the pandemic. ![]() “We found this option works successfully for most patients and raised no quality concerns.” “Patients can log in and complete an e-visit at a time that’s convenient to them and get a clinician’s response within a couple of hours, if not minutes,” Bhargava said. The results indicate that e-visit consults are a useful addition to Kaiser Permanente’s growing array of virtual care options, said lead author Reena Bhargava, MD, an internist with The Permanente Medical Group and medical director of the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Appointment & Advice Call Center. Simple, quick format for basic health concerns part of Kaiser Permanente’s growing toolbox of virtual care optionsįour out of 5 Kaiser Permanente Northern California members who used a simplified online e-visit for a basic health concern did not need follow-up care in the following week, a new analysis finds. ![]()
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