American Telemedicine Association, a nonprofit that
provides clinical practice guidelines for virtual care.
Dr. Kvedar says it's all part of the new wave of
medicine. "The digital-first approach is very powerful
in healthcare delivery, especially now when everyone
is under immense pressure to use brick and mortar
facilities very efficiently," he says. "Same-day surgery
is a great example of that." Medicine is always slow to
change, says Dr. Kvedar, so it's important that health-
care facilities begin to interact with their customers
as Uber and Lyft does, with patients arranging, paying
and rating the service from a mobile device.
"Texts are so incredibly engag-
ing that there is a tremendous
opportunity for outpatient facili-
ties to operate much more effi-
ciently," he says. "Patients have
more positive experiences overall
and multiple texts help us navi-
gate the multiple potential failure
points throughout the episode of
care, such as a patient not com-
plying with pre-op instructions
that causes a case-start delay."
Dr. Kvedar points to efficiency
as a prime motivator for increased
virtual offerings in outpatient facil-
itiesas. "ORs need everything to go
like clockwork," he says. "If they
don't, facilities incur extra costs,
and there's no revenue to offset it.
Digital tools help avoid that."
Providers have shown more
interest in taking the virtual leap
since the pandemic, says Dr.
Kvedar, with orthopedics surpris-
ingly taking a leading role. Many
orthopods didn't see an overlap
with remote medicine and what
they do. Then COVID hit, and
they were forced to care for their
patients without seeing them.
"Before the pandemic, you could-
n't get their attention," he says.
"Then they learned they could do
pre-op assessments, post-op
wound checks and set up physi-
cal therapy appointments remote-
ly. Now they realize telemedicine
opens up all kinds of new vistas
to improve quality care and
patient satisfaction."
OSM
2 8 • S U P P L E M E N T
T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 1
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