Today during the 20th Annual Telemedicine Meeting & Trade Show in Los Angeles, American Well, the nation’s largest telehealth service, unveiled its next generation product line, AW8. The next generation platform reflects a significant expansion in the reach of telehealth: whereas traditionally telehealth connected patients with available doctors to treat urgent care issues, Telehealth 2.0 now allows individual physicians to bring telehealth into their daily practice and use it to care for and follow-up with their own patient panels going beyond urgent care.
With its release of the new telehealth app for providers, American Well is helping physicians take full advantage of telehealth. Providers can now carry their practice with them – managing tasks such as: scheduling appointments, reviewing records, prescribing, encoding, payment collection, claim submission and record keeping, in addition to the main function of seeing patients live in high-definition video. The mobile app allows physicians to be available to existing or new patients, on their own terms.
To further support the care of homebound and chronic patients, providers can now also review data collected electronically from patients’ home biometrics devices using built-in Apple Health integration. Thoughtful workflow features allow providers to handle scheduled visits, convert unpaid patient communications (i.e. email, text, phone conversations) to reimbursed telehealth visits and offer availability to walk-ins during office and afterhours. New “hunting” functionality allows providers to interchangeably be available for in-person and telehealth visits, without having to commit exclusively to one or the other.
Features of AW8 platform help to define the new era of Telehealth 2.0:
– Brand new visit experience supports both on-demand and scheduled healthcare visits; streamlined intake, geo-location, and pharmacy selection experience; and faster, immersive high-definition video.
– Choice between multiple services, products and programs allows eligible patients to go beyond urgent care and receive richer, diverse healthcare services spanning primary, specialty and allied care.
– True marketplace for branded clinical services allows trusted health system and provider brands to be appropriately represented, and available to patients within the telehealth ecosystem.
– Telehealth-enabled devices for use inside clinical settings make it possible for providers to seek on-demand curbside consults from network-affiliated specialists within their clinical network (hospitals, primary care practices, and/or ACO networks).
“Eighty percent of healthcare resources are spent on longitudinal care needed by twenty percent of the U.S. population,” said Roy Schoenberg MD, CEO of American Well. “For those patients with chronic conditions, complying with the doctor office follow-up routine is not always easy or even possible. Telehealth 2.0 puts telehealth in every physician’s pocket. It allows physicians to reach their patients in the home setting or engage other providers where collaborative care is required. It allows physicians to use modern technology, instead of costly office visits, to envelop their patients.”
