Verizon Business today announced BlueJeans Telehealth, a way for providers and patients to conduct data-driven virtual care conversations. As healthcare organizations look to advance their telehealth practices post-pandemic by extending personalized care into the home, BlueJeans Telehealth gives healthcare providers and their care teams a new way to simply and securely connect with patients remotely.
According to the “The Future of Telehealth – Balancing Security and Ease of Use” white paper, healthcare organizations (81%) expect to see a greater investment in telehealth solutions over the next 2-3 years, with 85% of decision-makers identifying “ease of use” as a top-five driver in producing good outcomes from telehealth. While many hospitals and health clinics have adopted videoconferencing services during the pandemic for providing patient care, BlueJeans Telehealth was designed from the ground up for healthcare organizations to simplify the virtual join and visit experience and offer greater access to care, provide more flexibility for providers and patients, improve safety and extend the reach of services available.
Experience working with healthcare providers during the pandemic was invaluable in informing what matters most in the delivery of world class virtual care. Penn Medicine is one institution that quickly leveraged telemedicine early in the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure continuity of care to patients while keeping both them as well as their workforce staff safe and healthy. “After rapidly mobilizing our staff and infrastructure in March 2020, we were able to scale to over one million televisits by February 2021,” said C. William Hanson III, MD, chief medical information officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “It was essential that our patients be able to rely on us to continue their care in all settings, and innovating to offer them telemedicine and remote monitoring options was an essential part of maintaining our capacity to care during the pandemic.”
BlueJeans Telehealth delivers an experience for patients, providers and administrators. Using the device of their choice, patients can meet with their providers through their desktop or mobile browser or the BlueJeans app. BlueJeans with Dolby Voice Audio provides high-quality audio, minimizing disruptions to the visit so patients and providers can communicate important clinical information clearly. Providers and administrators will also benefit from a streamlined experience, as visits are embedded directly within their existing Electronic Health Record (EHR) workflows.
To simplify administrations and reimbursements, licensing is based on a per-visit model, which allows for straightforward data capture and reporting — an important aspect considering 59% of survey respondents cited uncertainty about telehealth reimbursement as a top challenge for adoption and utilization moving forward. BlueJeans Telehealth licenses will also be available in a named host format.
The future of remote care is reliant on smart accessibility that will help doctors make speedier diagnoses and recommend effective treatments. The customizable patient landing experience of BlueJeans Telehealth reduces the monotony of the pre-visit “waiting room” time by including an optional pre-visit medical condition survey and onboarding materials for patients, with a library center that enables providers to customize patient education for patients logged in for a virtual visit. Furthermore, medical interpreter services through partners such as Voyce, AMN Language Services and LanguageLine Solutions will be available in 200+ languages, including sign language, in addition to transcription and closed captioning services for enhanced accessibility.
Ranked as a top five post-pandemic “must have” for telehealth videoconferencing solutions by survey respondents, security and privacy are built into the BlueJeans Telehealth platform — including access controls, encryption, privacy checks, locked meetings, fraud detection and moderator controls — to help protect healthcare organizations and patients. Additionally, BlueJeans Telehealth is HIPAA-ready and Verizon will sign HIPAA business associate agreements with its customers that address regulatory requirements regarding privacy and security.