As the nation’s eyes focus on COVID-19, another healthcare crisis is unfolding out of sight. Hidden from view, millions of Americans who don’t have COVID-19 are suffering healthcare crises in their homes. These unseen individuals are facing major challenges, on multiple levels: acute, chronic, and preventive. Patients are waiting longer at home before coming to the hospital for acute illnesses like appendicitis, stroke, or heart attack. Patients with chronic diseases are not receiving
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Primary Care | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Amwell Raises $194M to Expand Telehealth Platform to Combat COVID-19 Pandemic
What You Should Know:
- Telehealth leader American Well (Amwell) raises $194 million in Series C funding in an effort to expand to better serve patients and healthcare providers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
- As COVID-19 swept across the United States, Amwell has seen a significant expansion in the usage of its core Amwell Platform.
American Well® (Amwell), a
national telehealth technology
and services company announced it has raised $194 million in Series C funding
with
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FCC’s COVID-19 Telehealth Programs Surpasses $50M in Funding
What You Should Know:
- To date, the FCC’s COVID-19 Telehealth Program, which was authorized by the CARES Act, has approved funding for 132 healthcare providers across 33 states plus Washington, DC for a total of just over $50M in funding.
The Federal Communications
Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau today approved an additional 43
funding applications for the COVID-19 Telehealth
Program. The seventh set of healthcare providers in both urban and
rural areas of the
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Doctor On Demand Becomes First Telehealth Provider to Support 33M Medicare Part B Beneficiaries
What You Should Know:
- Doctor on Demand becomes the first nationwide, telehealth provider to expand its medical services to Medicare Part B coverage in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Through Doctor On Demand, beneficiaries are now able to easily connect with a board-certified physician of their choice over secure live video from home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Doctor On Demand,
a San Francisco, CA-based virtual care provider, announced it is the first
nationwide,
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Banner Health Launches Virtual Waiting Room Across Network
What You Should Know:
- Banner Health deploys a first-of-its-kind virtual waiting room using LifeLink’s mobile chatbot technology to interact with Banner patients for both in-person and telehealth appointments.
- Conversational mobile technology supports COVID-19 social distancing guidelines and allows patients to safely access care across a network of 1500 physicians.
Banner Health, one of the largest nonprofit health care systems in the country, today announced the successful
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COVID-19 and Its Global Impact on Primary Care Virtual Consultations
Last week saw Teladoc Health release its 1Q20 financial results giving the US telehealth industry a first glimpse of how COVID-19 is impacting the ambulatory virtual care market. Discussion around the crisis and its impact on telehealth has been rife since early March and the data published by Teladoc Health highlights that this was justified.
The company reported that the number of virtual care consults in the quarter had passed the 2 million mark, up approximately 60% from the 1.24M
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KLAS: COVID-19 Guide to Telehealth Virtual Care & Remote Care Platforms
What You Should Know:
- New KLAS telehealth reports aims to aims to provide high-level COVID-19 guidance helpful to healthcare organizations on the virtual care and remote care platform vendor landscape.
- Includes high-level overviews of validated vendors’ current customer satisfaction, key questions to consider in building a strategy, and a consolidated view of KLAS’ previously published telehealth reports.
Telehealth
adoption in healthcare until recently had been increasing at a
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Stanford Children’s Health Resumes Procedures Delayed by COVID-19
What You Should Know:
- Stanford Children’s Health announced they are ramping up services again six weeks after postponing non-emergent medical procedures due to the state-mandated suspension.
- The health system will continue ongoing safety precautions including robust PPE standards; widespread access to COVID-19 and serology testing for all employees; testing all hospital patients; as well as using telehealth tools to reduce in-person visits whenever possible, among many other actions
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COVID-19 Pandemic: The Surprise Catalyst for Telemedicine Adoption
It is no secret that technology adoption in healthcare often lags adoption in other sectors. Often, the slow pace of adoption makes sense. While technology can drastically improve both cost and quality in healthcare when implemented correctly, it can also cause physician burnout, increased administrative workload, and worsen patient outcomes if a new technology fails to live up to the hype.
Historically, the slow pace of IT adoption in healthcare was nowhere more apparent than in the
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COVID-19 Crisis Makes Complying with Data Interoperability a Priority
With healthcare organizations focused on battling COVID-19, the recent federal healthcare regulation requiring data interoperability may have become an afterthought. However, compliance with this rule will create a powerful tool for fighting COVID-19 recurrences and future pandemics.
If interoperability had gone into effect earlier this year as originally scheduled, many insurance companies and the federal government would now be able to securely share the data they have for most of the
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