Telehealth Buzz 4.20.23: Oracle, Amazon Add New Virtual Care Capabilities & More!

Telehealth Buzz 4.20.23: Oracle, Amazon Add New Virtual Care Capabilities & More! admin2

Oracle, Amazon Add New Virtual Care, Communications Capabilities

• Oracle and Amazon announced new virtual care and communications offerings at the HIMSS 2023 conference.
• Oracle has expanded its partnership with Zoom to add telehealth capabilities within Oracle Cerner Millennium. Through this addition, providers will be able to join virtual patient visits with the relevant EHR information at their disposal.
• Further, providers will be able to input information from the visits into the patient’s EHR directly.
• “Integrating Zoom with Oracle Cerner Millennium is an important step in advancing telehealth options and giving patients increased options for care,” said Stephanie Trunzo, senior vice president and general manager at Oracle Health, in the press release. “This unified system enables caregivers to better engage and serve patients even when they are remote, helping reduce practitioner’s administrative burden and increasing access to care.”
• The expanded collaboration may also enable providers to offer telehealth in other settings, including decentralized clinical trials where telehealth can help boost participation.
• Amazon’s announcement focuses on in-hospital communications. The company announced a new suite of healthcare capabilities for its Alexa device. Alexa Smart Properties for Healthcare, the Amazon arm that helps health systems deploy and manage Alexa-enabled devices at scale, will now include WebRTC support, Private Branch Exchange (PBX) support, and the ability to onboard devices to WPA2 Enterprise Wi-Fi.
• WebRTC support will enable audio and video calls between Alexa Echo and non-Echo devices, such as tablets and laptops. This will allow patients and medical staff to connect for virtual check-ins and other needs.
• The PBX support feature will allow providers to link Alexa Smart Properties-supported devices with their facilities’ phone systems to route Alexa calls and support caller ID when patients and medical staff conduct incoming and outgoing calls, according to the Amazon blog post.
• Further, providers will now be able to onboard Alexa Smart Properties-supported devices to WPA2 Enterprise Wi-Fi networks to securely connect the devices to Wi-Fi without creating a new public network.
• Read more HERE.

Telehealth Remains Key Modality for Behavioral Healthcare Delivery

• After reaching new heights during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth use is leveling off in several clinical care areas. But there is one prominent exception: behavioral healthcare.
• Healthcare stakeholders are continuing to flock to telehealth for behavioral health services. An analysis of data from January 2020 to March 2022 shows that mental health conditions were the most common telehealth diagnoses at the national level.
• In addition, data shows that amid a drop in overall telehealth use since 2020, telemental healthcare has grown. In the first quarter of 2019, 32.4 percent of all telehealth visits were related to behavioral healthcare, according to a market research report. That figure jumped to 59.9 percent by Q1 2022.
• This data, along with the ongoing mental health crisis in America, signifies the importance of providing virtual care options for behavioral healthcare.
• At Michigan-based Easterseals MORC, telehealth has been integral to behavioral healthcare delivery since 2019. Then, amid the pandemic, the organization saw its virtual visit volumes skyrocket, and they continue to show no signs of slowing down.
• Read more HERE.