The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has seeded the U.S. healthcare system with innovations across the care spectrum, largely focused on outpatient care delivery through virtual care tools. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported over an 11,000% increase in virtual visits (i.e., video- or phone-based visits). In our academic health system, Brigham Health in Boston, Massachusetts, we saw an overall increase in virtual visits from pre-Covid-19 to its peak in May of over 20,000% (roughly 80,000 virtual visits that month), offered by nearly all of our ambulatory providers, and representing roughly 70% of all outpatient care from a baseline of less than 1%.
Balancing Virtual and In-Person Health Care
What should hybrid care look like once the pandemic is over?
November 17, 2020
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Summary.
As we transition to a new normal for healthcare delivery, how do we best continue virtual care alongside in-person care in the era of Covid-19? First, practices will need to develop criteria to triage and schedule patients for in-person or virtual visits; second, once technical functionality is established, virtual care needs to be optimized to meet other core provider and patient needs; and third, key performance indicators should be designed to assess the effectiveness of virtual care models.