Athenahealth introduced this week that it had introduced an embedded telehealth device to enable practitioners to perform digital visits without getting to down load individual application or use yet another 3rd-social gathering application.
The Watertown, Massachusetts-based cloud computing vendor stated athenaTelehealth – which is absolutely free for its athenaOne digital well being record device buyers till September thirty – permits providers to far more simply perform HIPAA-compliant telehealth visits within observe workflows, from scheduling to affected person messaging, movie conferencing, simultaneous-come upon documentation and billing.
“I have been making use of athenaTelehealth exclusively in my household drugs observe for many weeks now,” stated Dr. Dillon Miller, a Blue Ridge, Georgia-based physician, in a statement. “My individuals and my employees recognize telehealth is the future of affected person care, and I am happy to see athenahealth has provided us a solution to facilitate this new typical of care.”
WHY IT Matters
Practitioners around the country have observed skyrocketing telehealth appointment quantities due to the fact the get started of COVID-19, and athenahealth suggests it’s no exception.
According to the corporation, “the athenahealth network saw a three,four hundred% all round increase in day-to-day telehealth visits from mid-February to late April.”
By right integrating movie conferencing within the athenaOne EHR, the corporation suggests it hopes to streamline affected person and supplier practical experience.
“Customers can simply entry their telehealth consultations from any computer or cell unit with a modern day internet browser and integrated digicam – no more application or integration required,” in accordance to athenahealth.
The corporation suggests athenaTelehealth “leverages existing affected person conversation channels, like e mail and textual content concept based on affected person preferences, and provides telehealth directions and a seamless affected person practical experience.”
Nurses can total affected person ingestion by way of the EHR and then initiate a so-named digital handoff to practitioners.
In an athenaTelehealth demo movie, a corporation consultant explains that a physician has entry to “the exact same array of documentation varieties accessible in a telehealth come upon as she would in a common clinic-based exam.”
Offered that individuals may perhaps want the presence of medical interpreters, care workforce customers, advocates or more help, the device enables up to four people today to sign up for consultations from any unit with a digicam. It is unclear irrespective of whether individuals without entry to broadband, smartphones or other webcams can also request care by way of athenaTelehealth.
THE Bigger Craze
With the coronavirus pandemic continuing to necessitate social distancing through the country, a plethora of telemedicine sellers have stepped up to the plate, offering videoconferencing and remote affected person-monitoring, amid other possibilities for care.
At the exact same time, experts have warned of the potential security worries with the telehealth explosion, in particular provided the speed at which quite a few well being methods have rolled out significantly more substantial telehealth deployments than they may perhaps have been utilized to.
“Any time you make a adjust to an IT natural environment, you have the potential to increase threat,” stated Andy Riley, government director of security strategy at the managed-security-expert services vendor Nuspire.
“When you introduce quick adjust, that potential goes up promptly,” he stated.
ON THE File
“The skill to give our individuals with a telehealth platform that permits HIPAA compliance whilst in the come upon thoroughly transformed our telemedicine service,” stated Deb Twardowski, a board-licensed state-of-the-art nurse practitioner with Western Clinical Associates. “Western Clinical Associates has been an athenahealth consumer for fourteen many years, and we were overwhelmingly amazed with the company’s quick advancement of a telehealth solution to care for our individuals in the course of the pandemic.”
Kat Jercich is senior editor of Health care IT News.
Twitter: @kjercich
Health care IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
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