DALLAS – A Dallas-based company of primary care physicians that provide medical care over the phone is gaining traction, and now the company is taking a giant step forward with Microsoft’s HealthVault, says TelaDoc co-founder and CEO Michael Gorton.
TelaDoc was founded in 2002 in response to a growing demand for immediate access to care for minor medical problems. As Gorton points out, prior to this service, the company’s members would end up in the emergency room when they failed to reach their primary care provider.
TelaDoc is also a solution to what Gorton calls a “broken system” that occurs when physicians cross cover for each other. Because the on-call physicians don’t have access to the patient’s medical record, care can be jeopardized, causing a “break” in the system, he says.
In September, company officials announced TelaDoc would be using the Microsoft HealthVault platform.
“EMRs are the holy grails of healthcare right now, and Microsoft has done something quite amazing … they have recognized that there are a lot of medical records out there and they have built an engine that can translate between medical records,” said Gorton.
Gorton says the platform will be used as a “tool for translating their standard to ours.”
The partnership enables the sharing of patient information among TelaDoc members, their physicians and other healthcare stakeholders. Physicians will also be able to update a patient’s medical record to reflect telephone consults to provide a continuous electronic channel for the patient’s medical home.
TelaDoc expects to have 3 million members by 2008. Currently the company has about 200 physicians working for the service. Gorton says the ratio is 8,000-9,000 patients per physician.
As a member of the service, patients can log themselves onto the site and put themselves in a queue to notify physicians they are seeking care. Gorton says about 40 percent of the company’s members use this contact method. Members can also dial into the company’s call center. Next year the company plans to use text messaging and e-mail as a way to contact physicians, he says.
