Healthcare Delivery of the Future: Leveraging Advanced Technology in a Virtual Care Center

Improving patients’ health and well-being is at the heart of every healthcare organization’s mission. To achieve this, innovations must keep pace with the ever-evolving landscape. Digital care teams enhance the patient experience by empowering patients, easing concerns and improving lives through inclusive, patient-centered support that breaks down technology barriers and ensures equitable access to care. As a gateway to revolutionize remote patient monitoring, OSU physicians established a Virtual Care Center—a groundbreaking approach to centralize patient care beyond the walls of a traditional healthcare facility. OSU has been able to leverage its Epic resources to their full extent to streamline communication between patients and their care teams. Through the Epic platform, we can seamlessly order patient devices, collect real-time data with escalation alerts, and enable patients and providers to communicate and document within a single, unified portal.

Taking a proactive approach to remote management of varying conditions delivers lasting downstream impact—including improved patient outcomes and engagement, reduced cost of care, fewer admissions and readmissions, enhanced performance in value-based contracts, and more effective resource management. Within four years, specialties reaping the benefits of this program have climbed from 5 to 10, ranging from general medicine to cardiology. Nearly 5,000 patients' lives have been impacted by the patient-centered, inclusive approach offered by the Virtual Care Centers. This session will underscore the imperative of continuous innovation in the virtual healthcare space to deliver superior outcomes, enhanced access and heightened patient engagement, all while achieving cost savings.