As healthcare professionals look to telehealth solutions to halt the spread of the COVID-19 virus, Braidio announced the release of the telemedicine platform MyHealth Concierge, which runs over the network and cloud infrastructure of AT&T.

WHY IT MATTERS

The platform provides remote patient consultations and healthcare support through real-time communications, including live chat and video calls with healthcare providers and health professionals.

The HIPAA-compliant solution also enables access to online pharmacy, health records and insurance information, among other features.

ON THE RECORD

“Telemedicine enables remote physicians and registered nurses to facilitate non-emergency inquiries across states and even international borders,” said Rafael Solis, COO at Braidio. “They can triage and scale care without shifting resources from critical care operations.”

In the context of COVID-19, he added, hospitals already are trying to limit inbound visits by patients who are coming in for something non-COVID-19 related.

Solis explained that hospitals are operating at a maximum capacity, and tele-care limits capacity and allows the highest-risk patients to receive the attention they need.

Additionally, hospitals are trying to do anything possible to create a safe distance between patients and caregivers, and virtual care provides the opportunity to do that.

“For vulnerable populations you can still provide care without further putting their lives at risk to exposure,” he added.

Braidio’s MyHealth Concierge already is live in the field with the company’s healthcare clients, and the application can be deployed within days and can also be fully integrated into the platforms, such as Epic, which are already in use by healthcare networks, hospitals and care providers.

“Our partnership with AT&T brings their highly secure network and cloud infrastructure to the table,” Solis noted. “Our application is also very modular, allowing it to be malleable based on a partner’s needs. We can add other components such as online pharmacy, remote patient monitoring or strip it down so it’s very focused on just a few workflows.”

He predicted the outbreak would quicken developments moving telemedicine more towards the mainstream.

“It’s already here, and those who don’t believe so are already behind,” he said. “You don’t need to live in a developing country to experience challenges in accessing a doctor or basic healthcare. Rural America is already experiencing this. There has been a trend in the closure of hospitals and emergency centers in rural parts of the country creating an environment where the nearest hospital or emergency room is many hours away.”

THE LARGER TREND

The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has created a red alert need for healthcare at a distance, including telemedicine services and applications like the one developed at Braidio.

In an effort to fight the spread of the virus, the HHS Office for Civil Rights announced on Tuesday that during the coronavirus pandemic it would use discretion when enforcing HIPAA compliance for telehealth communications tools.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has expanded Medicare telehealth benefits, which the CMS says would enable beneficiaries to get telehealth services in physician’s offices, hospitals, nursing homes, rural health clinics and their homes.

Nathan Eddy is a healthcare and technology freelancer based in Berlin.
Email the writer: nathaneddy@gmail.com
Twitter: @dropdeaded209