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Hi, my name is Lisa Oriola and i’m the telehealth administrative coordinator at Bronxcare health system located in the south bronx.
The challenges we focused on first was in our long-term care facility residents often have changes in their baseline conditions that require contact with on staff for evaluation dispositions decisions at this time there would be an assessment that would be provided telephonically and result in a transfer to the emergency department this primary goal of ours was to reduce unnecessary trips to clinics and emergency rooms it was stressful for patients and costly to transfer residents out of the facility for certain clinic appointments that could be done in the nursing home.
as an fqhc the ability to increase access to our specialty clinics was paramount being located in the bronx some of our clinics have limited space for wheelchairs and stretchers but many services can be provided through telehealth by the resident’s bedside we also saw challenges in our community regarding getting the patient to their appointments for example some have no child care or they travel very far traveling by bus and subway through the bronx may be too arduous for them at times patients miss appointments as many do not prioritize their health.
We also have an extensive psychiatry department that would be able to reach patients easily and therefore we looked for telehealth to support our population’s needs we are currently utilizing the amd agnes connect at our bronx care affiliated long-term care facility we felt the agnes diagnostic cart would benefit our residents in the nursing home and simply connect them with our many bronx care specialists located in a variety of clinics our special care center telehealth program can accommodate a traditional model of telehealth wherein a physical exam can be done.
guidance by amd was easy when deciding about specific peripherals and working on the emr integration with our interface team. Another bronx care telehealth project we worked on with amd is called easy connect which is our direct to consumer platform it was specifically developed for us to be user-friendly for both our providers and patients our focus was to ensure it should be undemanding and straightforward we wanted it to be accommodating to meet the challenges of the community we serve for example there’s language barriers and reminders that needed to be utilized and this worked out really well as shared earlier we have been thinking about how to reach our challenged community to get health care to them.
AMD was helpful with its large supply of equipment and we are furnishing our bronx care mobile van with a weight with a wall mounted agnes connect to travel to shelters senior centers and housing complexes our goal at Bronxcare health system is to give our patients access to high quality care while reducing overall costs and effectively improving clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction the implementation of amd’s telehealth assortment of services equipment and terrific customer support and availability allows us to help reach our community health care needs both virtually and effectively.
