{"id":1884,"date":"2016-08-29T09:05:32","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T16:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/industry\/blog\/uncategorized\/cloud-based-retinal-telemedicine-pays-primary-care\/"},"modified":"2023-11-30T16:28:08","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T00:28:08","slug":"cloud-based-retinal-telemedicine-pays-primary-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/industry\/blog\/healthcare\/2016\/08\/29\/cloud-based-retinal-telemedicine-pays-primary-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud-based retinal telemedicine pays primary care to achieve Triple Aim"},"content":{"rendered":"
Telemedicine isn’t a new idea.\u00a0 It’s been around for over 40 years–and most of the industry agrees on the advantages: improved access to primary and specialty care, speed, convenience and reduced cost of care and complications.\u00a0 With so many compelling advantages, you\u2019d think that, by now, telemedicine would have gone mainstream in primary care, right?\u00a0 But it hasn\u2019t.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a good explanation.<\/p>\n
Because telemedicine rarely pays for itself when the bulk of compensation to providers is in the form of fee for service payments<\/em>.\u00a0 The problem is that the nearly 95% of payments to providers today are still in some form of discounted fee for service.\u00a0 Under fee for service, providers are paid to deliver care, not improve the access or speed of care, or, reduce the cost or need for care\u2014the value that telemedicine typically delivers.\u00a0 So there\u2019s no reason to expect telemedicine to go mainstream in primary care until the majority of payments to provider come in some form of fee for value.<\/p>\n That is, unless there’s a telemedicine service that pays for itself regardless of whether the bulk of provider payments are in the form of fee for service or fee for value<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Last month while on the road meeting with partners and customers, I found one when I ran into IRIS<\/a>, short for Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems.\u00a0 It\u2019s retinal telemedicine — high resolution retinal photos taken in primary care clinics, enhanced, and interpreted by remote retinal specialists.\u00a0 During my road trip, I sat down with Jason Crawford, the CEO of IRIS to look further into why so many primary care practices are integrating retinal telemedicine even while the bulk of their payments are fee-for-service.\u00a0 Below is a transcript of my conversation with Jason.<\/p>\n Schmuland:<\/strong> Jason, how is it possible that retinal telemedicine is a win for all three stakeholders–providers, health insurers, and patients\u2014regardless of whether the patient\u2019s health plan is a fee for service or fee for value payment model?<\/p>\n Crawford:<\/strong> With retinal telemedicine, every stakeholder involved in the care value chain benefits–and the benefits that each stakeholder realizes is in weeks, not years.\u00a0 Primary care providers benefit because they get reimbursed to do in-office evaluations and their quality performance metrics improve because more of their diabetic patients actually get their required annual retinal examinations.\u00a0 Ophthalmologists, retinal specialists, and optometrists benefit because their volume of appropriate referrals goes up because the patients referred to them are pre-screened in advance of their appointments.\u00a0 Health insurers benefit from improved margins because they can achieve five-star HEDIS ratings and reduce their costs related to treating retinal disease since early conservative treatments cost much less than later stage interventional treatments.<\/p>\n “Everything is handled and processed in Azure because the wealth of tools available in Azure has eliminated any need for us to maintain our own servers or software.\u00a0 This means we have zero infrastructure on premise.\u00a0 And when I say zero, I really mean zero.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, diabetic patients are the biggest winners because they can avoid blindness altogether through early detection and treatment.\u00a0 Today only about 50 percent of at-risk diabetic patients undergo retinal evaluation largely because of the barriers of cost, inconvenience, lack of awareness, and even procrastination.\u00a0 Primary care retinal screening removes these barriers because patients can easily get this done while they’re visiting their primary care doctor for any reason.<\/p>\n Schmuland:<\/strong> Operationally speaking, what does the workflow look like for retinal telemedicine in a primary care setting?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Crawford:<\/strong>\u00a0 Retinal telemedicine wasn’t practical or cost-effective for primary care in the past because of regulatory barriers and the cost of setting up and financing the camera was high and the end-to-end process of sending the image for expert interpretation, getting the report and recommendations back, and taking action on those reports\u00a0 was all done manually using paper-based processes.\u00a0 We\u2019ve removed the regulatory barriers by being the first FDA-cleared cloud-based Class II Medical Device for retinal telemedicine.\u00a0 We’ve commoditized retinal scanning by removing the costs of labor and paper and then automating and taking responsibility for the end-to-end multi-point process in the cloud.\u00a0 Now the loops are closed and the clinician gets the report back in their EHR as a consultation report for review and action.<\/p>\n Every time a CISO asks us how we’re going to protect their PHI, we tell them that we are drafting behind Microsoft\u2019s world class expertise and experience in cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance for the health industry\u2013 and that alone was won their confidence every time.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Schmuland:<\/strong> Wait a minute.\u00a0 This sounds like a systems integration nightmare.\u00a0 Are you saying that, for every clinic you have to install and wire up the camera, send the images to specialists for interpretation, send the reports back to the primary care clinic and upload each report into the primary care clinic\u2019s EHR?\u00a0 How have you managed to automate all this and remove the usual points of failure?\u00a0 What does your IT infrastructure look like?<\/p>\n Crawford:<\/strong>\u00a0 Our infrastructure is 100% Microsoft Azure.\u00a0 Everything is handled and processed in Azure because the wealth of tools available in Azure has eliminated any need for us to maintain our own servers or software.\u00a0 This means we have zero infrastructure on premise.\u00a0 And when I say zero, I really mean zero.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And with the enterprise agreement we have with Microsoft, we can pay as we grow.\u00a0 There’s no need for us to build or even anticipate our future capacity needs.\u00a0 Plus, the other big advantage that comes with Azure is Microsoft’s cybersecurity and privacy reputation, HIPAA business associate agreement (BAA), trusted and compliant cloud documentation in the Microsoft Azure Trust Center<\/a> and their Guide to designing secure health solutions <\/a>for developers.\u00a0 Every time a CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) asks us how we’re going to protect their PHI, we tell them that we are drafting behind Microsoft\u2019s world class expertise and experience in cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance for the health industry\u2013 and that alone was won their confidence every time.<\/p>\n Schmuland:\u00a0<\/strong> You selected Microsoft Azure in the early days of your company.\u00a0 What were the factors back then that convinced you that Azure was the platform that would best meet your needs as an early stage growth company?<\/p>\n