Managing Specialty Care Costs in a Value-Based World
Providing Access to Pediatric Specialty Expertise by Extending eConsult Offerings to Internal and External Requesting Providers
Heather Meyers, Director, Virtual Care at Boston Children’s Hospital
Patricia Hanrahan, Sr. Product Manager, Virtual Care at Boston Children’s Hospital
Boston Children’s launched their eConsults program to provide a streamlined way for internal primary care providers to submit questions, quickly expanding this to an external affiliated provider network of 600+ primary care providers. Additional use cases were identified for inpatient eConsults submitted by community hospitals for review by a pediatric Dermatologist. Offering eConsults while leveraging tools like AristaMD to bridge interoperability between systems ultimately expands access to pediatric specialty expertise.
Heather Meyers, MBA
Director, Virtual Care at Boston Children's Hospital
Heather is the Senior Program Manager of Digital Health at Boston Children’s Hospital. She brings extensive Telehealth and digital health experience and knowledge to the Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator (IDHA) team. Heather oversees the development of the operational framework for the digital health initiatives provided by BCH to patients served both domestically and internationally. She is also responsible for aligning the legal and regulatory integration into the delivery of digital healthcare while working directly with the finance and compliance departments. Heather leads the marketing efforts around digital health and ensures automated systems are operationalized within the application systems used throughout BCH and the patient population. She has vast experience in the fields of digital health for government relations, legal and compliance, health policy and commercial and private payers.
Patricia Hanrahan
Sr. Product Manager, Virtual Care at Boston Children's Hospital
Patricia (Trish) Hanrahan is a Senior Manager as part of the Virtual Care team at Boston Children’s Hospital. She oversees the Provider Virtual Care portfolio by leading the eConsults and Virtual Consults teams. Since joining the team in 2020, she developed the eConsult program to serve internal and external providers. The eConsults program provides access to Primary Care Providers across 3 sites internally and across 100+ practices externally to consult with 10 pediatric specialties. The team has expanded the hospital consult programs to hospitals on both the local and national scale.
Previously working for Cigna Healthcare, Trish joined the technology early career development program and rotated throughout information technology roles domestically and internationally, observing how healthcare delivery can vary. Her passion lies within the intersection of healthcare and technology and how digital health tools can provide better access and care to communities. Trish holds a Bachelor’s in health information management from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts.
eConsults Assist with Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis & Medication Management
Accessing adult and pediatric specialty care to help accurately diagnose and provide medication management for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can be challenging, particularly for individuals living in rural or underserved areas. ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects communication, social interaction and behavior. Early diagnosis and intervention are crucial for improving outcomes and managing symptoms for individuals with ASD.
eConsults offer a potential solution to this challenge by giving patients and healthcare providers access to specialists from anywhere. eConsults can enable specialists to review patient information, provide guidance and support to primary care providers, and collaborate with other healthcare professionals to ensure patients receive appropriate testing and medication management.
eConsults can also help increase efficiency in the diagnostic process by reducing wait times for appointments and enabling specialists to review patient information more quickly and accurately. A study published in JAMA Pediatrics earlier this year reported that pediatricians diagnose ASD successfully in almost all cases. While the study did not address the diagnostic performance of general practitioners, using eConsult can support early diagnosis and help reduce the likelihood of misdiagnosis or missed diagnoses, which can have significant consequences for patients and their families.