By Connie Branyan, Director of Strategy and Program Development
Yale Medicine has launched telehealth programs in four clinical departments with several others scheduled to go live over the next few months, merging expert clinical care with technology to provide added convenience for patients.
Yale Medicine is poised for continued expansion of telehealth initiatives. Working closely with Yale New Haven Health, YM has developed a telehealth strategy and has the technology in place to support clinical integration. The practice also has developed a framework for scaling and maintaining consistent standards to support telehealth expansion, including billing/reimbursement, standard operating procedures, clinical checklist/training, and compliance/licensure.
Telehealth programs at Yale Medicine take a variety of forms, including video visits between patients and physicians, e-consults between providers, and remote device monitoring.
For example, doctors in Pediatric Surgery and Transplant Surgery are conducting some of their post-op visits with patients by video, saving patients and their families a tremendous amount of time and disruption to their daily lives. Psychiatrists at Yale New Haven Hospital are able to provide electronic consultations to Emergency Department physicians at the St. Raphael Campus and other locations. And Yale Medicine specialists are sharing their expertise through e-consults with primary care physicians at the Fair Haven Community Health Center.
In the next several months, a new e-consult project will be launched between Yale Medicine and the Yale Health plan. Also in the next few months, several departments are scheduled to go live with telehealth projects, including Bariatrics, the Living Donor Program and the Center for Musculoskeletal Care. In addition, the Yale Center for Asthma and Airway Disease is planning to incorporate video visits into an existing research project that includes remote device monitoring.
Connie Branyan, director of strategy and program development, has been leading telehealth efforts for Yale Medicine and working with departments to establish their telehealth priorities. If you are interested in integrating telehealth in your department, section or program, please contact Connie at (203) 785-7138 or connie.branyan@yale.edu.