Virtua Health Executive Shares Pros and Cons of Tele-health

Executive Vice President of Strategic Business Growth at Virtua, Al Campanella, shares the pros and cons of telehealth and how Virtua is using sites like TelaDoc and E-Visits to provide patients with access to medical care via phone or video when it is not possible for them to travel.

6/3/17 #3009

Excerpt:

"We are pleased to welcome Al Campanella, who is Executive Vice President of Strategic Business Growth at Virtua. Strategic Business Growth, what does that mean? Well Steve, I have an exciting job. I get to help create new programs at Virtua. Sometimes working internally, and other times working with partners in the community. And we've been down to Virtua to do some fascinating shoots around a whole range of subjects, and one of them we've learned a lot about and want to talk about here is telehealth. What is it? And where are we going Al? Well, telehealth is an exciting new technology. It's another venue, really, where healthcare can be delivered. So we see telehealth, or I should say, really, audiovisual technology in our daily life. Facebook, Skype, so it's really... that technology is really now being introduced into the mainstream of healthcare. Let's play it out a little bit. For instance, we've had different physicians on who have talked about it, but from a strategic, you know, business growth perspective, give us a "for instance" out at your shop where telehealth will play out. In what instance? Where does it work? So we have several instances at Virtua. One right now, for example, it's with new moms. When they go home from the hospital with their newborn, sometimes they have problems with nursing their child. So we have lactation consultants who they can access over telehealth. So they're in the comfort of their home, they have a newborn, they may have other children with them, and we provide that counseling service over an audiovisual type of technology. So hold on. Now, the mom's there. She reaches out. Is she able to see the consultant on the other end? Absolutely. It's... And the consul...? I'm sorry for interrupting. The consultant can see her? Absolutely. And they can talk. And they can, you know, work through their consultation. So first of all, it takes some of the transportation issues out of it, if I'm not mistaken? It's very convenient. It will save time. It will save, perhaps, a downstream problem that could be occurring. A second great example is in our nursing homes. We have specialists who, again, use telehealth technology to consult with patients who are in the nursing home, and in many cases having them avoid what would be an emergency room visit because of an issue that's cropped up while they're in the nursing home or skilled nursing facility. And Teladoc? What is Teladoc? So Teladoc is a national service... Is that a company? It's a company. And Virtua is partnered with them. So there's..."