LEAWOOD, KS – Healthcare information technology will likely play a prominent role in the future of family medicine, as the 36 practices participating in TransforMED’s National Demonstration Project (NDP) are discovering.
A practice redesign initiative of the American Academy of Family Physicians, TransforMED is working with Raleigh, N.C.-based Medfusion to provide the project’s participating practices with Web sites that allow for “virtual office visits” and other forms of secure patient-physician communication.
“We think there is a significant opportunity for e-visits to play a role in healthcare in the future,” said Terry McGeeney, MD, president and CEO of TransforMED. “As access becomes a greater issue in healthcare, we need to look at different ways to improve the efficiency of care.”
McGeeney explained that the final report of the 2000-2002 Future of Family Medicine Project, of which AAFP was a major supporter, indicated that family medicine providers should have vibrant Web sites that allowed for increased physician-patient interaction. He said that TransforMED realized that the demonstration project had to offer such a system to participating practices if it was to identify the technologies that would help primary care move toward the future.
“All of the practices in the demonstration project will eventually offer electronic visits,” said McGeeney. “About 80 percent of the practices have a Web page, and 48 percent offer e-visits. But e-visits are in everyone’s timeline, because it’s a technology that’s oriented toward primary care.”
Medfusion specializes in the development of healthcare Web sites, and has a longstanding relationship with AAFP. The company is helping the NDP practices develop their Web sites, which include features such as pre-registration, bill payment, reporting of lab results and requests for appointments and prescription renewals.
“We’ve pioneered the concept of the virtual office visit,” said Medfusion CEO Stephen Malik. “These types of online interactions are typically for conditions that are easily diagnosed, or for the management of chronic conditions. The patient likes them because of the convenience, and a number of insurance plans will even pay for them.”
Malik said the average fee for a virtual office visit is $25-$35. A patient logs into a secure area of a practice’s Web site, and proceeds through a series of questions that will ultimately lead to a diagnosis.
Some NDP practices, such as Family Practice Partners of Murfreesboro, Tenn., are already using the technology.
“Virtual visits are a more efficient way of handling some kinds of appointments,” said Susan Andrews, MD, of Family Practice Partners. “The patients who are most interested in this tend to have really high deductibles, and some don’t have any health insurance.”
Family Practice Partners has had an electronic medical record system for six years, and Andrews believes that new innovations in information technology – such as e-visits – will prove beneficial to primary care.
“TransforMED recognizes that if you are going to offer quality care, it has to involve technology,” Andrews said. “Electronic records and interactive Web sites improve your efficiency and they really get all of your staff members more involved in patient care.”
