Setting a Solid Foundation for Hybrid Health Care Success

Most primary care providers in the United States have learned how to safely manage in-person visits over the past 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic. But that doesn’t mean the lifeboat that kept many of these practices afloat in early 2020 — telehealth — will be going away anytime soon.

Many health care providers are instead developing ways to move forward with a hybrid health approach that balances the strengths of both in-person and virtual visits to provide efficiencies and benefits for patients and physicians alike. Here are some of the approaches and strategies these providers are using to navigate this new frontier for patient care.

Define which appointments are amenable to telehealth

Not every encounter lends itself to a telehealth approach. A routine follow-up after a minor surgical procedure that doesn’t require a hands-on examination is a convenient use of telehealth. A regular check-in for a chronic condition supported using remote patient monitoring devices such as glucose meters or blood-pressure cuffs is another example. But visits for other concerns, such as a painful earache or an irregular heartbeat, require a physical examination to diagnose. Starting with telehealth, then asking the patient to make an appointment to be seen, may frustrate them.

“For telehealth visits to remain productive and valuable, providers need to focus on appointments that can be successfully resolved virtually,” wrote Matt Dickson, vice president of Stericycle Communication Solutions, in a recent Medical Economics article. “Otherwise, they risk alienating patients who may view virtual care as an unnecessary and costly step when their telehealth appointment results in a required follow-up office visit.”

Adjust your hybrid health care model based on patient preferences and capabilities

Even if you’re clear about which visits you plan to conduct virtually, prepare for the inevitability that some patients will not be interested or able to have a telehealth encounter. Consider the obstacles to virtual care some patients may face, such as the lack of broadband internet or strong cellular service, no access to digital tools like computers or mobile devices, and other factors 

Offer understanding and respect for patients who have significant reservations about using technology for something as personal as their health care. Unless your practice is required to convert visits to virtual care, as happened at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, be flexible in your offerings. If a patient prefers to see their provider in person, let them do it.

Keep the processes for in-person and telehealth encounters as similar as possible

At ChenMed, we have helped our patients get comfortable with telehealth by ensuring their virtual visit resembles what they’d experience in one of our centers.

Daniel Guerra, ChenMed’s Associate Chief Medical Information Officer, described this process for HealthCare Tech Outlook. Patients receive a check-in call from their ChenMed center’s front-desk staff. This alerts patients that their doctor will be ready to see them soon. It also reminds them of some virtual-visit best practices. Shortly afterward, a nurse sends patients a link to the patient, guiding them to a private, secure virtual exam room — no apps or specialty software required. Then, their doctor meets them in that room.

“In essence, patients received the same level of high-touch care they had come to expect from ChenMed, just in a different location — the comfort and safety of their home,” Guerra wrote.

Ensure your electronic medical record can be used seamlessly in your hybrid model

The integration of your technology is important to ensure patients and providers alike have a smooth telehealth experience, but it’s vital in a hybrid environment.

The information a doctor enters during a telehealth encounter should go into the same EMR that a doctor uses for any in-person visits to reduce the chance for incorrect or missing information that can occur when a provider moves notes in between systems. “An integrated telehealth platform can help drive efficiency and positive outcomes while reducing the likelihood of any errors that could, in turn, lead to medical errors,” noted Caregility, a telehealth solutions provider.

ChenMed centers use a proprietary EMR that was designed with input at every step from front-facing clinical staff. Our system, described in this post by Chief Information Officer Hernando Celada, is fully integrated, ensuring that “our physicians have everything they need, in front of them, at the point of care when they’re seeing a patient” — no matter where that encounter occurs. 

As a high-touch, value-based care company, ChenMed is excited about the opportunities that a hybrid health care model can provide for our patients and our providers.

If you’d like to learn more about our approach to hybrid health care, then read our post: Post-Pandemic, What’s the right approach for telemedicine in primary care?