Making Healthcare More Accessible with HealthIT
During the pandemic, healthcare technology (healthIT) took center stage to provide services for patients who could not, or chose not to, enter a medical office for care. This article explores ways companies and private practices use healthIT to improve accessibility & inclusivity for patients by educating patients about medical processes and supplies, and providing remote mental health services.
The COVID-19 pandemic made robust virtual healthcare and mental health services an absolute necessity, especially for millions of patients who are immobile, have chronic conditions, or live in rural areas without many choices for healthcare.
Inequity in healthcare
Addressing inequity in healthcare is a continuing concern and an economic necessity. “Health tech must be purposely driven toward solving health inequities and delivering opportunities for all,” says Prodeep Bose, EVP of growth and innovation at The Bloc. “It should bridge the gap, enabling patients to receive better healthcare regardless of their gender, geography, or income.” An example of where this initiative can have an impact is in hybrid healthcare, which is a blend of telehealth and in-person treatment. “But while hybrid options provide a new avenue for healthcare to reach much further, more needs to be done to truly impact health inequity.”
“We also need to address health literacy — a patient’s ability to reflect on their own health needs and find the right remedy across the spectrum of what’s available in traditional, hybrid and technology healthcare,” Bose adds.
The team at Better Health has made it their goal to improve health literacy.
Healthcare innovation and accessibility
Better Health and Pair Team are two companies using healthIT to make healthcare more accessible.
HealthIT accessibility and inclusivity
Better Health, co-founded by Naama Stauber Breckler and Adam Breckler, offers an end-to-end chronic condition care solution bundling peer support, education, telehealth, and home delivery of medical supplies. “During the pandemic, we’ve seen a much deeper increase of people searching for solutions at home because previously they used to get their medical supplies in a local shop, or maybe it got shut down,” Stauber Breckler says. “These vulnerable populations didn’t want to risk leaving their homes, which increased the need to easily and affordably get access from home.”
Patient coordination and clinical operation automation
Pair Team is a tech-enabled care team comprised of care navigators, care coordinators, nurse practitioners, social workers and behavioral health specialists that integrate with community health centers. “Our number one objective is identifying how we can utilize technology to increase access to care for underserved populations,” says co-founder and CEO Neil Batlivala. Pair Team’s Saas-based platform handles administrative work, allowing physicians and clinical staff to focus on their patients. “We provide a much-needed extra pair of hands to healthcare providers by scheduling appointments, preparing huddle reports before visits, and facilitating telemedicine appointments.”
In 2020, Pair Team helped manage approximately 3,000 Medicaid patients in two Southern California health clinics, resulting in a 40% increase in quality and three times the number of annual wellness visits. “We scheduled more preventative care visits in three months than the two clinics in San Bernardino and Riverside counties did in an entire year,” says Batlivala. Additionally, Pair Team’s efforts saved these clinics over 10 hours per week in patient outreach, and helped build huddle reports for the clinics’ doctors. The partnership, which occurred during the pandemic, resulted in a 15% increase in revenue for each clinic.
Telehealth benefits in private practice
Private practitioners and their patients have also seen breakthroughs using telehealth and EMRs (electronic medical records).
Telehealth helps make sessions more accessible for Dr. Nicole Villegas, OTD’s patients in their mental health-focused occupational therapy practice, The Institute for Sensory Conscious™ Living. “For some clients, virtual tools in video sessions such as shared screen viewing, access to video education, synchronized live subtitles, or shared documents for notes and written content can be helpful,” they said. This is especially true for clients who have memory impairments, are neurodivergent, and/or have sensory needs that impact verbal communication, where accommodations are not often offered at general in-office visits. Telehealth allows us to work through real-time skill building and environmental adaptations in the places where they will be utilized,” they said. Often, patients need additional support to implement providers’ recommendations. “This helps clients decrease the barrier of learning a skill or receiving an after-visit summary, and then trying to implement it without the necessary support.”
Lisa Dunlap, AGPCNP, holistic nurse practitioner and founder of Nurse Your Soul agrees. “Telehealth allows greater access for patients with co-morbid mental health issues, or lower socio-economic status who otherwise might not choose to come into the clinic,” she says. “Whether working in primary care, community-based hospice, or geriatric house calls, telehealth reduces the travel time for the patient and the provider. Hospice patients are often frail, experiencing pain or discomfort, and can have socio-economic barriers that make getting into the office impossible. With our EMRs accessible on tablets and laptops in patients’ homes, we can provide the needed patient care while documenting in real-time. We can also e-prescribe right there in a patient’s living room.”
Villegas and Dunlap also cite an increase in the number of patients they can assist. “For a few of my clients, access to services through telehealth has helped them follow through on their goals to show up more and receive the benefits of mental health support,” Villegas says. “Clients have also chosen to continue engaging in care for longer, and most of my clients have chosen to keep meeting virtually.”
“HealthIT improves the inter-disciplinary team communication, since a provider can send coordination of care emails to team members right in the patient’s home,“ Dunlap adds. “Telehealth also created greater access to hospice patients during COVID, and put them at less risk for contracting it. Hospice patients have six months or less to live, and these patients choose not to seek further treatment for their illness. They are very sick, often housebound or bed-bound. Because of healthIT, they can live their final days comfortably in their homes.”
Telehealth and telemedicine for mental health
Pair Team also offers mental health services, including satellite clinics, for vulnerable populations who need to address anxiety, depression, medication management and more via telehealth. “Before the pandemic, people were not familiar with, nor very open to telemedicine,” Batlivala says. “The pandemic changed people’s perspectives on virtual care and made it commonplace. And as a result, we were able to expand our services and reach more people in need.”
Telehealth has also worked wonders for the mental health services Villegas offers. “In some of the somatic and trauma healing services I provide,” they said, “it’s helpful for clients to be in their home environment and create a space of safety for themselves. My clients often comment on how they are thankful that they can show up to sessions, even if they just woke up! And they like the freedom to move around while we meet, compared to sitting in a small room for an office visit. This can be especially helpful for people who feel more regulated when they’re moving, and it often invites more communication. Telehealth allows them to gather their resources and practice creating personal, accessible spaces that support their healing. It also allows them to transition slowly into their day without dealing with transportation after sessions.”
Navigating insurance and medical suppliers
More than 80 million Americans regularly use medical supplies at home, but accessing these products can be challenging and costly.
In her market research, Stauber Breckler learned that customers found it much easier to shop for clothing or almost anything else other than medical supplies. It’s very inconvenient when they have to be their own navigators and coordinators. She co-founded Better Health to digitize and modernize the antiquated medical supplies industry to help people find, access and order the medical products they need.
Better Health implemented a three-pronged approach:
- Create an online experience that empowers patients to quickly discover and order medical supplies online.
- Show patients how to research the best product for their needs, and provide a straightforward explanation of a patient’s benefits, what their insurance covers, and how they can maximize both.
- Connect patients with a peer specialist to fill in the knowledge gaps from their healthcare provider. This peer support comes from people who have experienced the same chronic conditions. Talking with these peer specialists contributes to patients’ mental health, which can help them feel less anxious, lonely, and isolated.
“When people need a medical device or supply, they often spend an hour or two on the phone every month, not to mention many hours to get onboarded to coordinate their doctor’s prescription with insurance benefits,” she says. “Then they have to find a medical supplier that works with all of them, find the product that would work for them, and then repeat, repeat, repeat. That process takes a lot of time and energy.” Customers also needed simple explanations of their insurance benefits. “When people go to get a service, they want to know how much they’ll need to pay.” So she sought to make an easier, more intuitive online experience. Now, Better Health offers simple explanations of insurance benefits that educate patients and empowers them to make better healthcare decisions.
Peer support and coaching
Better Health has pioneered the use of peer support specialists within chronic condition management for programs. They released a whitepaper with data that shows favorable results on the psychological and health impact of its Novel Ostomy Peer Coaching Telehealth Program.
“Sometimes the doctor or nurse doesn’t have the answers you need because the topic is not part of their main expertise,” Stauber Breckler explains. “But peer specialists can help. They are part of the mental health workforce, and they’ve walked in your shoes with a similar experience.”
Several states have adopted Medicaid and Medicare peer support programs for mental health or substance abuse disorders. The Biden Harris administration is working on a peer specialist certificate to “accelerate the universal adoption, recognition and integration of the peer mental health workforce across all elements of the healthcare system,” Stauber Breckler says, “which we think is really exciting because we’ve seen the impact that peer support has on chronic conditions on your mental health.”
The impact of peer coaching has been incredible, and received unprecedented praise from Better Health’s patients. “Our members tell us things like, ‘Wow, my coach was a godsend! I’ve had this condition for 20 years, and I could finally fix something I didn’t even know was solvable before,’ “ Stauber Breckler says. “It’s pretty incredible to see the tangible impact that it can have on people’s lives.”
53% of the ostomy patients surveyed reported reduced anxiety, and 32% reported reduced depression. “And 61% were able to avoid a doctor visit because the peer helped them solve the issues they were dealing with,” Stauber Breckler adds, which also avoids a co-pay and decreases the utilization of care.
Reduction in the utilization of care saves money for health organizations too. Patients can avoid wasting time at the doctor’s office and exposure to other sick patients, which frees up time the doctor could spend seeing other patients. “That makes you feel really empowered, because you not only solved your problem, but you’re also building the skillset and tools you need to continue managing your condition at home over time,” Stauber Breckler says. “So everyone wins.”
Making healthcare even more inclusive
Pair Team’s use of telemedicine and automation of clinical operations and high-touch patient support for primary care clinics have resulted in improved customer satisfaction: they’ve decreased wait times, proactively scheduled follow-up care, and enabled providers to provide more focused care during the appointments, which builds better relationships with their patients.
“I think we’re seeing a lot of positive changes happening at Better Health: adopting digital health, new technologies, and new services that can help leverage a workforce that is highly skilled but not as scarce,” Stauber Breckler says. “But we always come back to the same question: How can we help our members? We really want to empower them and give them the tools to access the support they need, so they will feel mentally and physically healthier, and be more sustainable over time.”
Telehealth and other healthIT methods have undoubtedly improved access to many healthcare services. But despite all the positive outcomes that healthIT can bring to hospitals and medical practices, there’s still room for improvement:
- Telehealth doesn’t work for situations where a physical examination is necessary.
- Some patients don’t live in areas with strong internet access, or have devices compatible with telehealth.
- Telehealth startups connect patients with random doctors whom they don’t know. Patients may not trust the platform or the doctor because there’s no frame of reference or rapport.
- Some telehealth apps require direct payment from the consumer, with no option for using their insurance.
- The overall user experience (UX) of patient portals varies widely. It can be difficult to find medical records or history, schedule an appointment, or pay a bill.
- The burden is on patients to remember all their medical history, especially when EMRs aren’t easily shared between hospitals and medical practices due to their incompatible technical systems.
- Patients can also find it difficult to figure out how to find and pay for their medical supplies.
“Our customers are educated and web-savvy, so we want to give them all the information they need upfront,” Stauber Breckler says. “It’s our job to provide this information to them and educate them so they can take better care of themselves and make more informed decisions for their health.”
“The healthcare industry needs more telehealth and smart devices for care providers to make care more accessible,” Dunlap says. For example, “Alexa is a fantastic tool for patients living in assisted living settings or those who have dementia. Elderly patients use it for regular medication reminders, and reminders of what day and time it is. For those with dementia, or who don’t have a caregiver, medication reminders are a low-cost way to ensure medication compliance.”
Another barrier for some is transportation. Adding popup clinics and workstations in areas that people already visit frequently in the neighborhood, such as grocery stores, libraries or churches could help. And services have to be available at times when people are not busy working or caring for their families, so it’s not an additional burden to overcome.
“Many patients continue to be limited by their geography. Technology can help, but we need the infrastructure to handle it,” Bose says. “That means more accessible broadband that’s powerful enough to support the devices patients will need to truly benefit from hybrid health solutions.”
In addition, “the industry needs to drive not only the adoption of healthIT solutions, but acceptance,” Bose adds. “That means getting buy-in from doctors and other providers who will have to take on aspects such as complex technology and implementation of that tech, even when it means they’re getting a smaller return than in non-hybrid situations.”
“Technology holds a lot of promise for addressing inequities in health, but it must be carefully guided and managed to deliver on that promise,” Bose concluded.
What other ways can health providers use health tech to improve accessibility and inclusivity for people who need it?
Daree Allen Nieves is currently a writer and group fitness instructor. She was formerly a home health aide and certified nursing assistant.
