Measuring Practice Success and Patient Care: Identifying Conditions
Easily Managed in the Primary Care Setting
Eric Urquiza, Sr. Vice President of Operations & Client Experience at AristaMD
If it’s not urgent, procedural or diagnostic, it likely can be managed in the primary care setting using an eConsult.
eConsult specialists also support patients with chronic conditions and abnormal labs and imaging.
Finally, patients with comorbidities are often good candidates for eConsults.
To diagnose and treat the patient referenced on the right side of the screen, a PCP would need to consider referring her to as many as 3 specialties – Cardiology, Endocrinology and Psychiatry.
Given the patient’s symptoms, the time required to obtain multiple appointments, and the costs of accessing specialty care, a better approach would be to start with an eConsult. In this case, the PCP decided to request a Cardiology eConsult, which identified the recent addition of Atenolol as the source of her symptoms.
The Super PCP: How eConsults Enhance Primary Care Capacity
As a shortage of specialists looms and the effectiveness of referral processes wanes, healthcare looks toward innovative solutions to enhance quality primary care and capacity at the front line of care for our patient population. Through strengthening this effective and efficient care setting, access and outcomes improve.
Learn more about how telehealth technologies, specifically eConsults, are proving a valuable resource to enhance primary care through increased capacity.
An estimated 209,0001 primary care physicians (PCPs) are caring for a population fast approaching 325 million.
As America’s baby boomers age, PCPs have steadily increased the volume of cases referred to specialist care by having more than doubled since 1999. However, the country is also projecting a deficit of 95,000 specialty physicians by 2025.
The rising tide of demand and waning supply of physicians has resulted in a less effective and more costly specialty referral process. Referrals often lack complete medical workups, are sent to the wrong specialist, or are inappropriate for specialist attention. Long delays for PCPs to receive the results from specialist visits decrease a PCP’s ability to optimize patient care. Most importantly, referral issues may delay the necessary patient treatment and lower satisfaction with the care process.
Eric Urquiza
Sr. Vice President of Operations & Client Experience at AristaMD
Eric has 20 years of experience driving transformational healthcare IT programs, advancing patient care, improving access and outcomes for patients through technological solutions. He has been successful in leading many strategic client relationships and increasing provider adoption of telehealth solutions, ultimately leading to strong efficacy for underserved populations throughout the country. Eric holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Redlands.