Provider organizations mulling telehealth entry or expansion might look to the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group for inspiration as well as edification.
Last March the 1,600-physician practice launched a virtual homecare program to telemonitor COVID patients in and around Baltimore and Washington. It quickly grew from 40 active patients per day to almost 1,500 in May before leveling off at around 300 in early October.
In addition, the group grew its staff over that span from four physicians to almost 300, one nurse to 70, and one program manager to 17 nurse practitioners and four physician assistants.
The physicians went on to virtually see an average 29 patients each per day.
Describing the particulars of the telemonitoring accomplishment in Telemedicine and eHealth, hospitalist James Shaw, MD, and co-authors state a key part of their strategy was tapping doctors and nurses from specialties experiencing downtime due to COVID-caused postponements.
On the strength of this tactical maneuver, the virtual homecare program “was able to rapidly establish a telemedicine-based program for the management of COVID-19 positive patients in the DC and Baltimore Metro regions, and preliminary data suggest that such a program may be effective in keeping patients out of the hospital and/or ER,” Shaw et al. write.
Among the challenges program leaders grappled with were the movement of clinicians in and out of the program, a need for language translators and an initial lack of alerts for low oxygen readings on pulse oximetry.
The team’s success “offers an example of the rapid scaling of an existing program to meet the needs of a larger population in the setting of a pandemic,” the authors comment.
The study is available in full for free.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.