Health System Helps Greater Community Access COVID-19
Testing with Telehealth

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GOALS

Increase community COVID-19 testing abilities.

Ensure the health system continues to function at normal capacity.

Limit coronavirus exposures for health system patients and staff.

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STRATEGY

Provide the local community with a telehealth service.

Screen patients remotely and advance qualified patients to COVID-19 testing without in-person visits.

Launch flu test with an automated conditional COVID-19 test to reduce unnecessary testing.

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SUCCESS

93% of patients who started a remote consult presented with COVID-19 symptoms.

100% of the patients using the service for COVID-19 symptoms were sent for conditional testing.

85% of patients would have sought in-person care had they not had access to RelyMD.

Employee virtual health is just one approach that a Boone, NC area health system is taking as it looks for ways to keep those exposed to the COVID-19 virus socially distanced. The health system originally started giving employees access to the service as an additional healthcare benefit at the beginning of 2018.

At the beginning, it was a way for the health system’s workforce to easily access care – anytime, anywhere. The service also gave the health system a way to reduce their healthcare costs by helping employees avoid emergency rooms and urgent care facilities, the most expensive type of care for low-acuity medical conditions.

Expansion of an Existing Service

When the health system started to see a spike in patients presenting with COVID-19 symptoms, they wanted to implement a way to address patient concerns, reduce exposures for their employees, and ensure that the hospital could continue functioning as normal as possible. The influx started to impact unrelated workers and took away from normal day to day tasks. The health system knew and trusted RelyMD to provide quality virtual care to its employees and began a new contract that would expand outside its physical walls.

By creating new testing protocols and efficient workflows, together RelyMD and the health system set up an externally facing telehealth service that would screen patients for COVID-19 symptoms and direct them to the drive-thru testing facility the health system had put in place. In an effort to not over test and waste valuable resources that are in demand throughout the country, RelyMD began ordering conditional tests, sent directly to the health system. A patient would first be tested using a rapid results flu test, those testing negative for the flu would advance to COVID-19 testing all without leaving the parking area of the testing facility. As a result of the workflow, 100% of the health system’s patients who utilized RelyMD for COVID-19 screenings were advanced onto obtaining an official diagnosis.

Post-consult survey results also showed that 85% of patients who utilized the service would have sought in-person care without remote access to the screening and testing process. By quickly implementing remote screening, the health system helped a majority of the patients remain at home and spared unnecessary exposures for their healthcare workers.

Beyond COVID-19

All patients, no matter their diagnosis, were provided with additional access to RelyMD for surveillance of worsening symptoms, medication prescriptions for unrelated medical conditions, additional medical advice or direct referral to proper in-person care facilities such as urgent care, primary care, or pediatrics.

Other benefits from their virtual urgent care service have been:

Safer environments for healthcare workers across all facility types
Potential reduction in premature PPE usage on the worried well flocking to facilities
Patient care completion through RelyMD care coordination workflows; patients are truly connected with their next step in care, not left to figure it out for themselves
Easy navigation to other providers or specialities within the health system’s network of care