The Tipping Point for Telehealth

A message from Leah Puccio, CEO Vital Decisions:

In this moment I am watching telehealth teams — including our own — rise to meet the challenges presented by the global COVID-19 outbreak. These may be unprecedented times, but for Vital Decisions and all of our telemedicine partners, we have long been ready and prepared to serve.

I believe this crisis will be a tipping point for telehealth — moving it from being accepted as an emergency measure to becoming a preferred experience for delivering and receiving person centered care. When we are on the other side of this pandemic, medical and behavioral health care will likely be forever changed.

Consider the experience of being ill with the flu, with Coronavirus, with bipolar disorder, with multiple chronic diseases, with stage 4 cancer. Leaving the house is both an effort and a risk. An in-home health visit can feel uneasy, and isn’t always available in all areas.

A phone conversation requires none of these efforts, concerns, risks and distractions. It’s just about care, and often opens up perspectives in consistently surprising ways. One-on-one, the focus shifts from the illness to the individual and their health, values, quality of life.

Most individuals aren’t aware that they have telehealth services in their health plan benefits. Our interventions are proactive. We reach out, we listen, we present options and considerations, we help to mobilize and align care. We help people navigate the system. We help both the caregiver and the individual dealing with serious illness.

Now in this heightened sense of unease and uncertainty, the need for proactive outreach and care coordination is greater than ever.

Our interventions focus on ensuring that what is most important to an individual is kept front and center in all medical care delivery, now and in the future. We call this Care Alignment — making sure care reflects the goals, wishes, preferences of an individual and are incorporated into advance directives. It’s a topic that many know should be discussed, but research tells us few actually do without intervention. What is incredible is that our caring Specialists create a compassionate and empathic connection that invites these brave conversations. We hear streams of gratitude following our interactions. I can assure you, in times like these, most seniors who were not thinking about Advance Care Planning, are most certainly thinking about it now.

I’ve worked within this very mission-driven company for a decade. Before I took the helm as CEO last year, my work as chief operating officer focused on instilling practices and operating principles to scale telehealth. To ensure that every phone or video conversation with a client delivers value and impact. And to make the work for our Specialists — which demands boundless heart and compassion — sustainable and rewarding.

Of course, this is not the first crisis that Vital Decisions Specialists have worked through. Like in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy or the flooding in Texas, we’re now guiding vulnerable individuals with compromised health through the multiplied challenges of managing illness or chronic conditions — and the heightened emotional needs with isolation and crisis.

We’re fielding the questions and concerns to align care decision-making. We’re touching people in the most overwhelmed regions and in rural communities where access to care can be difficult. Also because we provide services nationwide, we already have direct visibility to know how this pandemic is touching everyone at the same time.

Alongside our peer telehealth services, we are humbled to be an organization on the front lines of this pandemic, and we take this responsibility very seriously. We are lock-in-step with guidance and mobilization calls from the Health & Human Services Department, the Center for Disease Control, the National Institute of Health, The World Health Organization. And we are working in parallel with our health plan partners who put the needs of members first.

I am so proud and grateful for our people, our partners, our practices and our platform.

I know we will look back on this time, the actions we took, and the telehealth services that were mobilized as being a critical component of “flattening the curve”, maximizing every ICU bed and ventilator, supporting our country’s healthcare providers, and ensuring access to care for our most vulnerable populations.

*Originally published on LinkedIn 3/20/20