What Pieces of Primary Care Work Virtually in a Post-COVID World? – #HITsm Chat Topic

We’re excited to share the topic and questions for this week’s #HITsm chat happening Friday, 10/23 at Noon ET (9 AM PT). This week’s chat will be hosted by Matt Sakumoto (@MattSakumoto) on the topic “What Pieces of Primary Care Work Virtually in a Post-COVID World?“.  Matt Sakumoto is a primary care physician and product manager at Circle Medical, a primary care telehealth company based in San Francisco. He is also an assistant clinical professor at UCSF, and recent graduate of their Clinical Informatics fellowship (@ACIFellows), and frequent participant in the #TelemedNow tweet chat group.

Telemedicine…Telehealth…Virtual Care – whatever the new term is, COVID-19 has definitively accelerated the push for care beyond our four clinic walls. In the early days of the pandemic, remote triage of symptoms was crucial for patient access and patient safety. However many of these models tend to function like urgent care clinics with low continuity between patients and their providers.

As we shift our practices from simple survival to a return to the new normal, primary care practices are developing ways to remotely provide preventative care (cancer screening, diabetes and hypertension management, etc). But the pandemic continues to take a financial toll. Even as of September 2020, many primary care practices are still facing the financial pressure of the pandemic, and are using telehealth to maintain patient volume, according to this Primary Care Collaborative survey.

As health systems adapt and adopt virtual care platforms, which of these innovations will stick even in a post-COVID world, and what will the future of primary care look like in the new virtual care landscape?

Join us Friday, October 23, at 12pm ET for an exploration and discussion of this interesting topic!

Topics for this week’s #HITsm Chat:

T1: What does “Virtual Primary Care” mean to you? Can 100% of Primary Care be delivered via telehealth and virtual care platforms? #HITsm

T2: During COVID, was there anything you previously thought was impossible to accomplish via telehealth, that could actually be delivered virtually? #HITsm

T3: What are the main infrastructure barriers to achieving the goal of Virtual Primary Care? And how do we ensure Digital Equity so ALL patient populations can benefit from this expanded access? #HITsm

T4: What remote devices can be used to facilitate elements of a primary care visit? #HITsm

T5: What policy and payment levers need to be in place to facilitate adoption of virtual Wellness Exams and other preventative care and care coordination activities? #HITsm

Bonus: What does a successful VIrtual Primary Care *visit* look like? What would that practice look like in order to be successful? #HITsm

Upcoming #HITsm Chat Schedule

10/30 – Tricks or Treats – Health IT Edition
Hosted by John Lynn (@techguy) from @hcittoday

11/6 – TBD
Hosted by TBD

11/13 – Precision Health
Hosted by Brian Stout (@thinkstout) from @hc1dotcom

11/20 – TBD
Hosted by TBD

11/27 – TBD
Hosted by TBD

We look forward to learning from the #HITsm community! As always, let us know if you’d like to host a future #HITsm chat or if you know someone you think we should invite to host.

If you’re searching for the latest #HITsm chat, you can always find the latest #HITsm chat and schedule of chats here.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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