Wish you were here: Virtual urgent care is an option for vacationers

As summer vacation season approaches, talk to your patients about their telehealth options through your practice or through their insurance company. That way, they'll be prepared if they need urgent care while they're away. 

Seeking medical treatment while on vacation – the way it used to be
  
Long ago and far away in a universe without smart phones and apps, I was enjoying a much-longed for summer vacation on a quaint island off the coast of Massachusetts. Happily stretched out in my beach chair reading a fantasy novel, I was jolted back to reality when my young son traipsed up from the waves and complained to me that his eye was itchy.

I took one look at my son's weepy eye and knew immediately that it was conjunctivitis. At that time, getting the care my son needed meant that our beach time was rapidly coming to an end. So I did what parents do and launched into action: I packed up our stuff, loaded the car, drove back to the rented cottage, thumbed through the phone book, made a dozen phone calls to try to get a doctor’s appointment and, when that failed, drove over to the emergency room and waited several hours for my little guy to be seen. 

This was nothing out of the ordinary that July day a decade or so ago. This is just the way it was. Trying to get treatment for a minor health condition while on vacation was arduous, time-consuming, and not fun.  No wonder today’s health care consumers are demanding telehealth options from their providers – and that demand is poised for enormous growth. In fact, experts believe that telehealth will grow by almost 15 percent by 2020.  

Telehealth options today 

For today’s parents, telehealth options make it easy to the connect with a provider using a smartphone, tablet or other device, and what was once an hours-long and potentially expensive exercise can now be accomplished 24/7 from the comfort of home – or beach chair! 

For providers, there are clear advantages for offering telemedicine to their patients. Not only does it make your patients’ lives easier by eliminating unnecessary in-person visits, but it improves their access to care both during and after office hours. The ability for a practice to offer on-demand care for acute conditions in the wee-hours of the night rather than having patients go to the emergency room or other urgent care provider goes a long way in ensuring continuity of care not to mention patient loyalty. 

Thanks to telemedicine, the same beach scenario in 2019 would have played out much differently. I imagine it this way: I put my book down and sign in to my Partners HealthCare On Demand. I provide some information about my son’s symptoms. I wait in the virtual waiting from for 15 minutes and then voila! We are connected with a provider via video. The provider examines my son’s eye, diagnoses the conjunctivitis, and sends a prescription to the local pharmacy. The doctor says if my sons are careful the trip to the pharmacy can wait a couple of hours. I can rejoin the characters in my novel and my sons can frolic in the surf and build sand castles for a little while longer.

Further reading

Check out this infographic from CDW Healthcare on the history of telemedicine – it’s older than many of us think!