eConsult Benefits For Healthcare Systems
Aaron Morgenstein, MD, Orthopedic Specialist at AristaMD
What are the benefits to the healthcare system that utilizes orthopedic eConsults?
Well, first things first. If we can do eConsults, we’re certainly gonna avoid unnecessary in-person referrals. That’s number one. We’re gonna expedite orthopedic care. So these patients are gonna know if they need to be seen right away or if we can delay treatment, maybe trial conservative treatment first, and so they’re getting expert orthopedic care, even though they’re not being seen in person. It can be of significant savings to the healthcare facilities. The way that I like to explain it to administrators is that orthopedic surgeons should be seeing operative pat operative patients and postoperative patients. They don’t have to see patients that are not ready for surgery. And so that orthopedic econsult platform allows us to prep the patients and make sure they’re a good candidate for surgery, make they make sure they fail the conservative treatment.
And so that saves time and money for the facility and the healthcare systems. A beautiful thing about the eConsult platforms, they’re HIPAA compliant. So physicians can share information with other physicians such as orthopedic surgeons. They can share x-ray findings with me. They can share the actual images, they can share all the personal information we need to help them make decisions going forward. And as far as the healthcare system’s concerned, an eConsult platform is very scalable, uh, very easy to make it scalable. I can see one eConsult today, or I can see 50. It’s the number of patients I can see. Three eConsults is really amazing.
Five Ways eConsults Support Value-Based Care
Combine your referral management platform with an eConsult solution to reduce patient wait times and the cost of care. Learn five ways our eConsults support value-based care by allowing primary care physicians, nurse practitioners or PAs to submit electronic requests for patient advice to our team of specialists to manage low-acuity patients.
#1 Help Patients Avoid Unnecessary Face-to-Face Specialty Visits
About 70% of eConsults can address what physicians typically send for a face-to-face specialty visit. As a web-based physician-to-physician consultation, there is no need for any particular technology or integration — the PCP orders the referral the same way they would traditionally order one. Or suppose the patient was to go face-to-face for a specialty consult with the provider using our referral nurse coordination, RNN service, and nurse navigators. In that case, our nurse will curate the eConsults by grabbing all of the data needed for the patient from the chart. Private health information is then sent to our specialist, who reviews the data and provides an evidence-based response on that patient’s best practice and management. Within four to six hours, the primary care provider receives a notification and can view the eConsult specialist’s recommendations.
The bottom line — for every specialty visit where we serve the patient using an eConsult and address issues through the primary care provider, we can fend off the need for three face-to-face visits. Also, once you gain specific knowledge from a specialist on a particular condition, you have the answer to the same question when it comes up again.
Aaron Morgenstein, MD
Orthopedist and Orthopedic Specialist at AristaMD
Dr. Morgenstein is a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon. He attended medical school at the University of Kentucky and residency at the Atlanta Medical Center. Dr. Morgenstein has a demonstrated history of working in the hospital & healthcare industry. Skilled in Clinical Research, Medical Education, Medicine, Public Speaking, and Healthcare Information Technology (HIT)