Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1372822
26 Executive Briefing Sponsored by: A mid COVID-19 and its many related hardships, the lingering debate in healthcare regarding the legitimacy, safety and potential of telehealth to support and extend clinical care was finally put to rest. Telehealth has now become a mission-critical pipeline through which significant volumes of high-quality care are flowing. Becker's Hospital Review recently attended Amwell's annual Client Forum event and heard from two of the foremost experts in telehealth, Amwell's co-CEOs and founders: Ido Schoenberg, MD, who also serves as chairman, and Roy Schoenberg, MD, who also serves as president. These telehealth leaders, and brothers, discussed how Amwell's next-generation telehealth platform, Converge, enables transactional and longitudinal healthcare, while strengthening existing patient-provider relationships. From supplementary to necessity During the darkest hours of the pandemic, healthcare workers were overwhelmed, which drove leaders across organizations to embrace change. "The entire industry rallied," Dr. Roy Schoenberg said. "Practice rules were rewritten, reimbursement was extended, licensure restrictions were relaxed, HIPAA was suspended and even workflows that were considered critical for telehealth delivery were replaced overnight with the dire need for simplicity, speed and reliability." Today, a new reality has taken hold. Telehealth is no longer seen as simply an experiment in innovation or an attempt to improve healthcare access. Telehealth has now joined EHRs and claims systems as an essential part of today's healthcare infrastructure. "In 2020, telehealth changed from a supplementary urgent care service used by a few, to a required enablement platform which is an integral part of all healthcare," Dr. Ido Schoenberg said. The expectations around telehealth reliability, user experience and predictability in terms of integration and operation have now shifted from a "nice to have" to a "must have." "Simply put, telehealth has got to work. It's got to work well, and it's got to work all the time," Dr. Roy Schoenberg said. Enter Amwell Converge — A single telehealth platform for the distribution of care For Amwell, the tectonic shifts in care delivery accelerated by the pandemic represented a new era of opportunity. In response, the company evolved its development plan and created Converge — the next version of the Amwell platform that is designed to advance digital connectivity across the ecosystem and provide a single meeting place for virtual care needs across the care continuum. "Converge was designed from the ground up with a holistic understanding that the future of care of any given patient will blend physical, digital and automated experiences," Dr. Roy Schoenberg said. "All three will be improved with powerful insights from just-in-time data." First and foremost, Converge is a single platform with a single codebase. This provides organizations with a unified identity system that supports streamlined and regulatory- compliant exchange of information and services across the care ecosystem between every willing participant. It is also designed to be integrated and embedded in existing digital assets, such as EHRs and patient portals. "Converge takes full advantage of open APIs for data and functions," Dr. Roy Schoenberg said. "It has standard plug-ins with the likes of Cerner Millennial, Epic, Claims Clearinghouse, Surescripts and more. It strictly adheres to FHIR standards and has the latest in HITRUST and other certifications. This means integration of telehealth with your existing system is no longer a faith-based journey. It's now a known, predictable quantity." Amwell has recognized that as telehealth innovation accelerates, the company will need to tap into the creativity of others to ensure its offerings stay ahead of the curve. According to Dr. Ido Schoenberg, "We embrace innovators and developers. They are critical players in our ecosystem's race to digitally enable healthcare, so we strive to be as inclusive and diversified as possible." As a result, Converge is an open platform that will host and operate third-party apps and programs. This open architecture offers diversity of choice and the freedom to innovate on a live platform. It is designed to enable and support, rather than replace providers or distract from the healthcare experience. The 3 cornerstones of telehealth 'Converge' — A conversation with the Amwell brothers Schoenberg