Healthcare organizations continue to grapple with a shrinking and burned-out workforce while simultaneously working to fulfill their missions of delivering high-quality care and expanding access. That has prompted a need for innovative solutions that can extend the reach of traditional care.
At an executive session sponsored by Amwell at the Becker's 10th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, Murray Brozinsky, chief strategy officer for Amwell, moderated a discussion about how virtual and automated care can extend the reach and capacity of in-person care while expanding access and improving outcomes. Speakers were:
- Jody McCloud Missmer, network administrator for behavioral health, St. Luke's University Health Network (Fountain Hill, Penn.)
- Stacy Porter, vice president, digital health solutions, University Hospitals (Cleveland)
Four key takeaways were:
1. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare has been met with a perfect storm. "It's staff shortages, but at the same exact time, we have enormous financial stress and health systems are laying people off," Mr. Brozinsky said. That means health systems have had to adapt. While physical care is not going anywhere, many systems are recognizing the need to do more with less. Amwell has stepped in to provide an enablement platform for a "hybrid care" future, Mr. Brozinsky said.
2. A hybrid care platform can help fill gaps created by the shortage of caregivers. Amwell's solution offers a connected model with the goal of sustaining longitudinal contact with patients across in-person, automated and virtual visits. "When you integrate technology with physical care, and use data to understand the status of patients and where they are in their health journey and their care journey, you can start to surround them with experiences that include automated care, virtual care and digital care," Mr. Brozinsky said. "And you can do a much better job of optimizing . . . time, distance and people."
3. Amwell's platform has been used successfully across multiple use cases. In Ms. McCloud Missmer's organization — St. Luke's University Health Network — Amwell's digital mental health programs are used to supplement the employee assistance program, which proved hugely helpful during the pandemic for behavioral health support needs. "We noticed that people were showing up to work, they weren't calling out sick, they weren't utilizing PTO," she said. "We were seeing that the first 21 months, we were gaining on every dollar that we spent on Amwell. But more importantly, our staff was healthier." Seventy-one percent of employees reported clinically significant improvement in their moderate to severe depression, and 62 percent of employees reported clinically significant improvement in their severe anxiety.
Ms. Porter's organization — University Hospitals — uses Amwell's automated text-based chat programs to gauge how chronic condition and post-discharge patients are doing. If the patients' responses fall outside of agreed-upon parameters, providers can intervene; otherwise, the system can check in with patients without staff having to do so manually. "With shortages and the high cost of clinical staff, this is one way that we are really making a big impact and being able to manage, because we're using our clinical staff at the top of license," she said. In addition, since using Amwell's platform, University Hospitals saw a 48 percent reduction in no-show cancellation rates.
4. Amwell's platform has also unveiled unexpected benefits of the hybrid care model. Some providers have reported feeling better connected with patients through virtual care because they are able to see patients in their environments during video appointments, Ms. Porter said. And in the process of implementing Amwell's chat program for colorectal surgery recovery, Ms. Porter's organization discovered that surgeons had different protocols, prompting a conversation to develop a consistent standard of care.
While in-person care will never be supplanted, it can be enhanced by a hybrid care model than can help stretch caregiver resources and continue to help healthcare organizations deliver on their mission of high-quality care.