American Well announced on March 3 its national coronavirus response program, which includes working with healthcare stakeholders to ensure telemedicine is available as a first line of defense to reduce the impact and spread of COVID-19.
Five notes:
1. American Well is offering ongoing communication and training for the thousands of physicians who deliver care on its platform.
2. The telemedicine company's client base includes more than 240 health systems and 55 health plan partners.
3. American Well has also established an "always-on-call" infection control officer, COVID-19 specific workflows to guide clinical operations and quality, and a COVID-19 response team.
4. Using telemedicine tools to guide people to the correct level of healthcare for their medical needs is a key component of first responders', providers' and health systems' response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to the CDC's Preparing Communities for Potential Spread of COVID-19 action plan.
5. American Well's board-certified providers are trained to screen patients, assign risk, answer questions and recommend the next steps a patient should take after they have developed respiratory conditions common in COVID-19, according to Peter Antall, MD, CMO at American Well.
"Not only can telehealth greatly minimize the demands on in-person primary care, urgent care, and emergency departments across the country; it can also reduce unnecessary risk to patients and care teams from further exposure to this highly infectious virus," Dr. Antall said in the news release.