Telehealth/Virtual Care : Can We Help You?

"We've seen phenomenal rates of patient satisfaction in virtual-care visits ... and it's a no-brainer as to why. They don't have to travel across town or miss half a day of work, and can comfortably see a doctor from the comfort of home or work with none of the risks of infection you'd have in the waiting room."

"Since then [introduction of the pandemic into the summer], we've returned back to a more sustainable pace of growth, but we're still meeting sales and usage targets in 2020 that we weren't expecting to reach for several years."

"We've seen massive adoption of virtual care and I'd be shocked if things went back [resuming in-office doctor visits by patients]."

"There used to be a technology gap for older people, but that's gone away too. If grandparents can connect with their families via video now, they can do it with a doctor."

"What we're trying to build is an omnichannel health experience that patients can access all in one place. The idea would be that we would eventually figure out a way to get all these providers into one platform, but we haven't made any firm decisions on how or when this will happen."

"Over time, what's happening is that we own a large chunk of the patient's health-care experience. We're the platform that has their hospital records, plus the one they get middle-of-the-night care in and they won't want to switch."

Dr.Brett Belchetz, CE, Maple Corp., telemedicine provider, Toronto

Photo: Maple Corp website

 

Every element of human activity has in a brief period of time switched from in-person to on-line connection, so why not doctors' appointments through telemedicine? When the global pandemic struck in North America doctors' offices went on clamp-down, and appointments were largely through telephone contact or Zoom meetings. They will remain that way for the duration of the infectious rate of SARS-CoV-2 until such time as the approved vaccines have seen global distribution and a majority of any population has been inoculated against COVID-19.

Virtual-care service through telehealth at Maple Corp. pre-dated the onset of the coronavirus, but it has realized a huge leap in telemedicine use with the advent of lockdowns due to COVID. Dr.Belchetz worked as a consultant and emergency room physician when with co-founders, the three started the company in 2015. Now, the trio's telehealth/virtual-care service fits right into this era of vigilance against virus contagion, complicated by overtaxed health-care resources.

It is a source of direct medical consultation available on a 24-hour basis, seven days a week, a platform that connects patients with a pre-vetted general practitioner or a medical specialist by video, instant message, or telephone call, which takes two minutes or under, to complete. There are at the present time over two million users and 1,500 physicians involved. Doctors tend to work as much or as little as they wish to commit to, while being paid a set fee for service per consultation.

An average of six doctors across the country make enquiries about joining the network every day, and another 600 GPs are listed as willing to join the roster, as need for their services increases. The company had been developing at ten to 15 percent month-over-month in revenue and usage, but it saw revenues triple between February and April of this year as physical offices and medical centres shut down during the initial lockdown and remained in that position since, offering telephone consultations in lieu of office visits.

A new report was recently issued by the CD.Howe Institute think tank focusing on this situation titled Canada's Virtual Care Revolution: A Framework for Success. A situation the pandemic has brought to bear through general adoption of virtual care. The report's authors anticipate that virtual care will become "a mainstay of clinical care in the future" as long as the financial and regulatory support can be relied upon from providers and governments.

"The pandemic absolutely was a tipping point for telehealth and you can't fit that genie back into the bottle", commented Duncan Stewart, director of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte Canada, pointing to data from Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center illustrating that 92.5 percent of patient visits conducted during a four-week period ending in April of this year were conducted through video or telephone, in comparison to 0.1 percent pre-pandemic, in March.

There is now an increasing number of publicly funded billing codes for virtual services, despite initial criticism on how the service might fit into the public health-care system in Canada. On the arrival of COVID-19, 60 percent of health-care visits with primary care physicians and specialists were conducted virtually, plateauing at 30 percent, according to a Canada Health Infoway survey of September 2020. Consumer and provider apprehension and lack of support from insurers and governments have been pushed aside in favour of the necessity of providing health care during COVID-19.

 

Maple, working with governments and insurers to accustom them to the idea and to implement programs has advanced trends to consolidate. In 2018 the company helped a rural hospital in Prince Edward Island through building a platform keeping the facility in operation with the use of virtual staff. Maple collaborates in Ontario with some long-term care homes so residents can be given virtual access to specialists. 

 

Green Shield Canada and Medavie Blue Cross have signed on to enabling wide-spread access to Maple services. And Shoppers Drug Mart Inc. invested $75 million into Maple in exchange for a minority stake in the company's future. Collaboration with the country's largest pharmacy chain helps to expand the service, demonstrating that Maple's platform is capable of handling business on a large scale driven by Shoppers.