March 29, 2024

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Athenahealth launches new EHR-embedded telehealth tool

Athenahealth introduced this week that it had introduced an embedded telehealth resource to allow for practitioners to perform digital visits with out possessing to down load different software or use an additional third-party application.

The Watertown, Massachusetts-based mostly cloud computing seller said athenaTelehealth – which is absolutely free for its athenaOne digital well being document resource customers right up until September 30 – permits providers to a lot more effortlessly perform HIPAA-compliant telehealth visits inside follow workflows, from scheduling to client messaging, video clip conferencing, simultaneous-experience documentation and billing.

“I have been working with athenaTelehealth solely in my family members drugs follow for several months now,” said Dr. Dillon Miller, a Blue Ridge, Georgia-based mostly doctor, in a statement. “My sufferers and my staff members comprehend telehealth is the upcoming of client treatment, and I am glad to see athenahealth has presented us a products to facilitate this new common of treatment.”

WHY IT Issues

Practitioners all around the place have seen skyrocketing telehealth appointment numbers considering that the get started of COVID-19, and athenahealth suggests it is no exception. 

According to the company, “the athenahealth network saw a 3,four hundred% all round improve in day by day telehealth visits from mid-February to late April.”

By instantly integrating video clip conferencing inside the athenaOne EHR, the company suggests it hopes to streamline client and company practical experience. 

“Customers can simply just obtain their telehealth consultations from any personal computer or cell device with a modern day web browser and integrated camera – no further software or integration required,” according to athenahealth. 

The company suggests athenaTelehealth “leverages existing client interaction channels, together with e-mail and text concept based mostly on client choices, and delivers telehealth guidance and a seamless client practical experience.”

Nurses can finish client intake through the EHR and then initiate a so-identified as digital handoff to practitioners.

In an athenaTelehealth demo video clip, a company agent clarifies that a doctor has obtain to “the identical array of documentation styles accessible in a telehealth experience as she would in a common clinic-based mostly examination.” 

Given that sufferers may need to have the existence of clinical interpreters, treatment staff users, advocates or further assistance, the resource allows up to 4 men and women to be a part of consultations from any device with a camera. It is unclear irrespective of whether sufferers with out obtain to broadband, smartphones or other webcams can also look for treatment through athenaTelehealth.

THE Greater Trend

With the coronavirus pandemic continuing to necessitate social distancing all through the place, a myriad of telemedicine suppliers have stepped up to the plate, presenting videoconferencing and distant client-monitoring, among other options for treatment. 

At the identical time, specialists have warned of the opportunity stability considerations with the telehealth explosion, in particular presented the velocity at which lots of well being techniques have rolled out much more substantial telehealth deployments than they may have been utilised to.

“Any time you make a adjust to an IT ecosystem, you have the opportunity to improve chance,” said Andy Riley, govt director of stability tactic at the managed-stability-solutions seller Nuspire. 

“When you introduce speedy adjust, that opportunity goes up fast,” he said.

ON THE File

“The potential to deliver our sufferers with a telehealth platform that permits HIPAA compliance although in the experience thoroughly transformed our telemedicine support,” said Deb Twardowski, a board-accredited state-of-the-art nurse practitioner with Western Health care Associates. “Western Health care Associates has been an athenahealth customer for 14 decades, and we have been overwhelmingly impressed with the company’s speedy enhancement of a telehealth solution to treatment for our sufferers throughout the pandemic.”

Kat Jercich is senior editor of Health care IT Information.
Twitter: @kjercich
Health care IT Information is a HIMSS Media publication.