The 3 Stages of Providers’ Technology Response to COVID-19
Like the rest of the world, we at Carium are adjusting to COVID-19. As a virtual care company, we are fortunate to be able to keep our doors open when so many businesses have been forced to close, and, more importantly, to be able to help those on the front lines to cope with the crisis itself. We are deeply grateful for the personal and organizational efforts and sacrifices of healthcare providers who are caring for patients and saving lives under extremely difficult circumstances on a daily basis.
Our partners are primarily large health systems and independent healthcare practices that are on the front lines of care. Of course, organizations are at varying stages based on their size, geographic location, patient population, and other factors. Many systems, especially larger ones, have sophisticated multi-stage plans to leverage digital technology underway, and these have been accelerated significantly. Others haven’t had the bandwidth or resources to undertake such comprehensive planning. In assisting particularly independent primary care practices in the last few weeks, we’ve begun to see patterns in how they are using and planning to use technology in response to COVID-19.
The observations below most strongly reflect the perspectives of independent healthcare practices, many of which are now thinking about how to use technology to support a population health remote management strategy including both COVID-19-infected patients and non-infected patients. Here are the patterns we see emerging:
How We Can Help
Even in the midst of the crisis, it’s been heartening to see our extended digital health community pulling together to share resources and information — including the free KLAS report released last week on technology solutions that assist in the fight against COVID-19. KLAS included Carium in its “telehealth/virtual care” section, where we are highlighted as a cloud-based software platform that lets healthcare providers manage patients remotely via telehealth using their own staff. See our listing on page 263.
We have been able to address some of our partners’ needs in Stage 1 of the COVID-19 crisis (see how), and we are poised to provide even greater support to healthcare providers in Stages 2 and 3 as their organizations move beyond necessarily-rushed decisions to address immediate threats to more comprehensive plans to manage the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and the new, reformed reality of healthcare that follows it.
We’ve already been through a clinical transformation curve with several of our partners. Lifestyle Medical CEO Arwin Soetanto and his team began using Carium last December to help them provide Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) services to eligible chronic care patients, and are now expanding access to our telehealth platform to support and manage all of their patients virtually from the safety of home. For some practical insights and tips on how a primary care practice in California is expanding the use of our platform to address a broader set of strategic goals, watch our webinar.
