Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Bret Larsen, CEO of eVisit (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Where are we now in the telemedicine industry?

Bret Larsen: Today, we call it telemedicine, virtual care, and telehealth. The reality is it needs to become medicine, care, and health. There is no virtual component. The care received remotely should still be the same quality when receiving it in person.

We’re in this interesting dynamic where healthcare is still so inundated with the impact of the pandemic and the resurgence. We’re all still trying to handle what’s coming at us while backing off a little bit at a higher level and saying, “What does it need to look like?” When pandemic hit in full force, everyone rushed to get something into place to just meet the need. What that looks like for organizations that haven’t been working on it previously is introducing Teams and Zoom into your workflow.

The thing that I’m hearing from CIOs is there’s a really big difference between video and care. It is about crafting a better experience for all parties. How do you meet providers where they’re at and give them what they need? We’re still very much in the early stages of transitioning and redefining care strategy and delivery. We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. 

Sramana Mitra: Two questions. What is the difference between a health system that is trying to do this over Zoom versus trying to do this over a custom system like eVisit? The second question is what is the state of the industry? What percentage of the systems are using Zoom? What percentage is using something like eVisit? What percentage is doing neither?

Bret Larsen: If you break down what’s required to get a doctor and patient to connect in those two environments, it’s pretty interesting. When you look at video to delivery care, you’re going through the same workflows that you would have to go through in a physical setting, except you’re doing it all disconnected. To connect a doctor and patient, it requires six or seven people – clinician, IT, billing, scheduling, admin, patient, and maybe a nurse practitioner.

It requires three to four different software solutions – EMR, scheduling suite, patient portal, and maybe the video technology. The result is, you end up with a margin on that visit that is between 17% to 25%. When you compare that to an enterprise-wide virtual care platform like eVisit, it requires two to three parties. You have the physician, patient, and sometimes you have an admin or a nurse. It’s one technology interface that integrates with your other technology environments. It’s seven clicks on behalf of the provider to connect with a patient.

Patients go through the intake process that takes about 60 to 90 seconds of the patient’s time. They bring with them information that the provider needs to deliver effective care. We integrate with the electronic health record so they can find that patient and pull their health record in. The providers are notified when a visit is requested. It could be scheduled or on-demand.

With no downloads from either the provider or the patient on mobile or desktop, they’re face to face. All the information collected that’s required for billing and prescribing has been collected and sent to the right points. The margin on that is in the 70% range. There’s a dramatic difference in the business implications and the bandwidth and capacity. 

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Bret Larsen, CEO of eVisit
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