Allegheny Health Network celebrates successes, charts future of telehealth

PITTSBURGH – A year ago, Allegheny Health Network (AHN) was performing a handful of video visits and telehealth consultations each week. By the end of 2020, AHN had carried out nearly 500,000 virtual engagements – an almost 5,000 percent increase over 2019 volume.

Hospitals and doctors’ offices nationwide faced a dilemma when COVID-19 arrived in the United States. To minimize risk of spreading the virus, they had to avoid unnecessary person-to-person contact during a time when their care became more essential than ever. Converting in-person services to telehealth was a logical solution, but few health systems had the structure in place to do so at the scale that would be required.

“Technologically, we didn’t know what we were capable of until COVID hit,” said Kayla Cousineau, vice president of clinical operations and strategic initiatives, AHN. “But in less than a week, several teams stepped up, and the entire network was effectively ‘turned on’ to be capable of providing telehealth services and video consultation.”

This included increasing the bandwidth, technological infrastructure and organizational capacity necessary to accommodate thousands of online patients daily. It also meant training thousands of clinicians and support staff on new tools, protocols and software platforms.

By mid-spring, AHN had enabled 1,200 clinicians to conduct more than 3,700 virtual visits per day across a broad range of specialties. At its peak, 75 percent of AHN primary care appointments were virtual.

Today, virtual care is utilized most often in primary care and psychiatry/behavioral health. But as new technologies are developed and deployed, Amy Crawford-Faucher, MD, medical director for telemedicine at AHN and vice chair of AHN’s Primary Care Institute, says that patients will more commonly have the option to obtain virtual care in place of in-office appointments.

“New tools will allow physicians to virtually look into a patient’s throat and ears, check heart rate, get an accurate blood pressure, and collect other important data, enabling the virtual visit to more closely replicate what happens in the doctor’s office,” she said.

Also on the horizon is telemedicine utilization in the acute care setting. Already, AHN has the ability to perform certain inpatient evaluations through virtual technologies, in the areas of stroke care and intensive care.

Through its Mercy Virtual partnership, AHN has expanded its ICU capacity by more than 60 beds across four hospitals, allowing board-certified intensivists to remotely monitor AHN patients through state-of-the-art telecommunication technology.  

While AHN is planning for continued telehealth growth, the goal remains to provide the highest quality patient care and to do so in the venue that most aligns with that goal.

“The best care happens when the doctor and patient come together and decide what works in the best interest of the patient’s health and wellbeing. For the right patient and at the right time, telemedicine gives us additional tools for achieving that highest level of care,” said Dr. Crawford-Faucher.

To learn more about telehealth at AHN, visit www.ahn.org/appointments/video-visits.

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