AristaMD Launches Enhanced Platform for PCPs to Expand Access to Specialty Care Referrals, eConsults
By Anastassia Gliadkovskaya
Apr 10, 2023 12:07pm
AristaMD, a digital healthcare company focused on care transition solutions, has launched a combined offering for primary care providers (PCPs) that aims to give patients faster access to specialty care.
The solution integrates patient-provider matching, electronic referrals to specialists and eConsults into one interoperable solution, aiming to reduce unnecessary specialist visits and administrative overhead.
“There’s such a huge access problem in the country,” Brooke LeVasseur, CEO of AristaMD, told Fierce Healthcare. “We have a huge specialist shortage and it’s only getting worse.”
With AristaMD eConsults, which has been an offering since 2015, PCPs can request guidance from hundreds of virtual specialists on specific cases, getting a response within 24 hours. About a third of all referrals are appropriate for eConsults, LeVasseur said. Nearly three-quarters of eConsults result in the PCP being able to treat the patient without a referral immediately.
Are Digital Consultations and Referral Tools the Solution to Physician and Practice Staff Burnout?
Unsurprisingly, primary care visits rose dramatically during and after Covid-19. The pandemic, unfortunately, intensified the demand and quickly became the reason for burnout in the medical field. While the extreme demand following the pandemic has decreased, the impact on physicians and medical staff lingers. Staffing shortages abound and burnout among physicians and support staff remains high. During the crisis, many practices turned to telehealth to offer patient care. Now, it’s time to look for digital health tools that can support patient demands for care and decrease burnout in the medical profession.
Doctors Nationwide are Experiencing Symptoms of Burnout
These patterns were here before and were recently heightened due to the global pandemic in 2019. The rate at which we are seeing burnout in physicians is growing at an alarming rate. The mayo clinic conducted research in the fall of 2022 that supports the claims of burnout. According to their findings, 63 percent of physicians surveyed reported at least one symptom of burnout at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, which is an increase from 44 percent in 2017 and 46 percent just ten years prior.