Telehealth: A Top Organizational Performance Solution During COVID-19 and Beyond

Telehealth: A Top Organizational Performance
Solution During COVID-19 and Beyond

© 2020 Health Catalyst
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Telehealth: COVID-19 and Beyond
As health systems have adapted to their
COVID-19-driven new normal, the most
successful organizations recognize they must
excel in three specific areas to not only survive
but thrive in a rapidly evolving industry:
 Revenue
 Cost
 Quality
While health systems are finding new ways to
adapt to the pandemic, telehealth solutions
offer a practical alternative that allows for
success in all three of these areas.

The onset of COVID-19 forced health
systems, payers, and patients to buy
into telehealth solutions as the
primary method of healthcare delivery.
While the health effects from COVID-
19 are still unknown, replacing face-
to-face visits with telehealth services
seems to have little negative impact
on patients’ health in the short term.
In fact, the number of higher-profit
telehealth visits can positively impact
a health system’s bottom line.

With the new insight that virtual
care can be the same quality as
in-person care, healthcare leaders
and providers are realizing that
telehealth is not just an effective
replacement solution during
COVID-19—it’s here to stay.

Healthcare’s New Future: Telehealth Solutions
The new reality of widespread telehealth and
fewer patients seeing providers in a clinic
setting has had a ripple effect across the
healthcare industry, from health systems
to payers and providers.
The growth of virtual healthcare delivery
has encouraged payers to shift models
to reimburse for telehealth and providers
to adapt to delivering care via virtual
means, such as phone or video-
conferencing, instead of
face-to-face encounters.

Health systems and providers
embraced telehealth out of
necessity (e.g., to maintain
revenue due to the immediate stop
in nonemergent procedures).
If COVID-19 hadn’t happened,
providers would likely still be
seeing patients in the office, letting
telehealth fall by the wayside.

Many health professionals saw, and
continue to see, telehealth solutions as
a temporary stopgap until the economy
was back to business as usual.
However, telehealth is proving effective
and advantageous for all sides of
healthcare—patients have better
access, providers can see more
patients while reducing waste and
overhead, and the quality of care
rivals in-person care.

Telehealth Solutions Drive Improvement in
Three Key Areas
Healthcare providers are concerned
that offering telehealth solutions will
cannibalize the traditional in-person
fee-for-service (FFS) business model.
Still, the reality is that health systems
can’t survive with the older FFS model.
Embracing telehealth as a reliable
delivery method allows health systems
to endure the new healthcare
landscape, enabling them to reach
patients in the pandemic era.

Three Key Areas
While geography and access issues can limit
in-person visits, telehealth can reach patients
no matter where they live.
Telehealth is one-way health systems can
overcome COVID-19 era challenges as well
as meet ongoing goals in areas of:
Revenue Cost Quality

Three Key Areas
#1: Revenue
Health systems exist to promote health and
well-being and deliver care when necessary.
However, revenue generation is critical for
health systems to survive, operate, and
effectively provide care.
Leveraging telehealth allows health systems
to turn profits through increased patient
access and capacity, especially when
traditional in-person visits are on hold due
to the pandemic.

Three Key Areas
#1: Revenue
Telehealth also generates higher revenue
because of its convenience for patients, no
matter their geographic location.
It also eliminates many typical patient
challenges associated with a regular
office visit, such as finding trans-
portation, taking time off work,
and finding childcare.

Three Key Areas
#1: Revenue
Most telehealth programs allow patients
to connect from a smartphone or tablet,
so location isn’t a problem.
As long as patients have internet access,
they can receive care anywhere—home,
work, or even out of town or on vacation.
Removing barriers to access means
patients are more likely to contact a
provider when in need.

Three Key Areas
#1: Revenue
Eliminating time-consuming processes
associated with care delivery in a
traditional clinic setting is another way
health systems can increase revenue.
For example, when a patient arrives for
an appointment, she usually fills out
paperwork, gets vitals taken, then waits
for the doctor in the clinic room.

Three Key Areas
#1: Revenue
With telehealth, the paperwork and
vitals can all be done through online
forms before the patient connects with
the provider.
That means the providers can spend
more time delivering care to patients.
When providers have a higher
capacity to care for patients, more
patients receive care and stay healthy,
and the health system benefits from
increased profits from additional
patient visits.

Three Key Areas
#2: Cost
Another contributor to the
increased revenue associated
with telehealth is the lower overall
operating costs compared to
delivering care in person.
Therefore, the increase in
telehealth visits leads to a
higher bottom-line margin
per patient visit.

Three Key Areas
#2: Cost
There are multiple reasons that
telehealth is cost-effective for
health systems.
Because telehealth allows tech-
nology to do most of the work by
automating routine check-in forms
and information, it decreases the
need for administrative staff.
Reduced staffing requirements is not
necessarily a way to generate new
income, but health systems can
eliminate unnecessary costs.

Three Key Areas
#2: Cost
Seeing fewer patients in person and
having a smaller staff allows providers to
occupy smaller spaces, cutting costs by
avoiding expensive building leases,
reducing the number of physical exam
rooms as well as costly equipment.

Three Key Areas
#3: Quality
With the forced adoption of telehealth due to the
pandemic, health systems, providers, and
patients have discovered that although the
delivery method changed, health outcomes didn’t.
Providers and patients both reported that they
didn’t notice a difference in the quality of the
virtual visit compared to an in-person visit.
As providers were able to see patients more
often, their knowledge of the patient’s situation
increased, allowing them to deliver more
personalized care to each individual.

Three Key Areas
#3: Quality
Because telehealth solutions allow patients
to access care with little effort, more
patients are now receiving care sooner.
The increase in timely care enables
care teams to deliver the right care the
first time, leading to lower readmissions.
High-quality care via telehealth can also
increase care management participation,
allowing providers to implement inter-
ventions earlier and improve chronic
disease management.

Three Key Areas
#3: Quality
Telehealth, combined with better use of
ancillary staff, allows care teams to close
clinical care gaps more efficiently.
For example, better use of non-physician
providers helps health systems increase
care gap closure at a lower cost, improving
clinical and financial operating efficiency
through cost reduction measures.

Embracing Telehealth Solutions Leads to
Success in Revenue, Cost, and Quality
While telehealth is not entirely new to
healthcare, providers and health
systems have historically overlooked it.
With the coronavirus’s unprecedented
changes and an overnight stop in
nonessential care (a significant source
of revenue for many health systems),
organizations have no choice but to
embrace telehealth.

Because this innovative care delivery method results
in revenue generation, improved cost management,
and better outcomes, telehealth has
allowed health systems to survive
in a tumultuous time and
strengthen performance overall.

With the future of COVID-19 still
uncertain, unanswered questions
about a vaccine, and a hazy near-
and long-term future, health systems
must have the foundation to succeed
in any environment.
If they can flourish in three key
areas—revenue, cost, and quality—
they can deliver the right care to the
right patients and help communities
achieve optimum health.

For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

More about this topic
Link to original article for a more in-depth discussion.
Telehealth: A Top Organizational Performance Solution During COVID-19 and Beyond
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Steps for Effective Patient and Staff Contact Tracing to Defend Against COVID-19 Spread
Josh Ferguson APRN, ACNP, ANP-BC, VP of Clinical Outcomes Improvement; Mark Nelson, VP, Business Development
John Hansmann, MSIE, LFHIMSS, DSHS, Professional Services, VP;
Monica Horvath, Strategic Consultant, Health Intelligence & Product Adoption
How to Scale Telehealth Solutions to Increase Patient Access During COVID-19
Ed Corbett, MD, Medical Office
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Heather Schoonover, MN, ARNP-CNS, PHCNS-BC, FCNS, VP

Will Caldwell attended Davidson College where he prepared for a career in medicine,
studying biology and working in East Africa as a wildlife manager. Dr. Caldwell completed
residency training in otolaryngology – head and neck surgery at the University of
Maryland Medical System and the Shock Trauma Center of Maryland, and went on to
achieve triple board certification in otolaryngology, allergy and immunology, and sleep
medicine. In 2013, Dr. Caldwell became a board member and medical director of Give
Hope Global, a not-for-profit entity dedicated to the development of health systems
focused on the use of community health workers. He also serves as Senior Medical Advisor to Zanmi
Lasante, the name for Partners in Health in Haiti. His work there was documented in a film that won two
Emmy Awards. Dr. Caldwell earned his MBA With Highest Honors and was named for Academic
Distinction from Wake Forest University. He served as the Senior Vice President for Clinical Integration at
Novant Health, building the Novant Health Clinically Integrated Network, a value-based platform
comprised of over 2800 providers across 26 specialties. In his current role as Senior Vice President for
Physician and Market Development at Health Catalyst, he promotes the use of data analytics to promote
good health and save lives. His area of expertise rests in technology enabled health care delivery models
and value-based care platforms. He continues to see patients and has received over 26 awards for
clinical excellence during his 17-year career as a clinician.
Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Will Caldwell, MD, MBA

Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Health Catalyst is a mission-driven data warehousing, analytics and outcomes-improvement
company that helps healthcare organizations of all sizes improve clinical, financial, and operational
outcomes needed to improve population health and accountable care. Our proven enterprise data
warehouse (EDW) and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in
support of more than 65 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system
to forward-thinking physician practices.
Health Catalyst was recently named as the leader in the enterprise healthcare BI market in
improvement by KLAS, and has received numerous best-place-to work awards including Modern
Healthcare in 2013, 2014, and 2015, as well as other recognitions such as “Best Place to work for
Millenials, and a “Best Perks for Women.”

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