Making virtual care healthcare’s greater equalizer

Social determinants of health are more top of mind today than ever. It’s amazing to stop and think that as much as 80% of a person’s health and well-being can be tied to socioeconomic, physical environment and healthcare access factors. Virtual care by its nature has the promise to play a role in reducing health inequities; it can increase affordable access, remove geography as a barrier and can give a provider insight into a patient’s physical environment in a way that in-person care cannot.

I say promise because just offering the service itself is not enough to reduce inequities in practice. For example, Teladoc Health has a long track record of successfully advocating at both the state and national levels to ensure that the services can be legally offered and doctors can legally practice and be re-imbursed for it.

Teladoc Health is helping organizations solve longstanding healthcare inequities in their communities by expanding access for some of the most vulnerable populations. The Institute of Medicine defines equity as an integral component of delivering medical quality, integral being the key. Our focused strategy is to have the greatest impact, for the greatest number of people, across the greatest number of care needs, by making equity a foundation across all our services.

Chronic disease management is one area where we have seen our services meaningfully address accessibility challenges, with more than 50% of active users of our chronic care solutions living in vulnerable or underserved communities. By embedding accessibility into our experiences, be that support through capabilities that accommodate phone-based preferences, low-bandwidth situations and support for people with visual and physical impairments that can reduce mobility, we can level the playing field for access to better health for all.

Meet Jamison who lives in a rural area in Kentucky. In this brief video she shares how the integration of data with seamless interaction came to life for her while living with her diabetes.

Another important component of reducing health disparities is ensuring the care we deliver is culturally and language and linguistically appropriate. For example, last year our clinical analytics team identified a gap in our experience for Hispanic members as affecting health outcome results, so earlier this year we launched our chronic condition management programs in Spanish – from the web and app thru to the engagement collateral. And this is in addition to having more than 100 mental health providers and coaches who identify as Spanish speaking. Later this year we will extend our members’ ability to self-report race, ethnicity, language and preferred pronouns, which will further improve the personalization, and quality, of the experiences and care we deliver.

Our commitment to health equity also shows up in the people we hire and with whom we work. We believe clinicians should have the training and resources to provide a care experience that is sensitive to life stages, preferences, cultural differences and lived experiences. For example, as part of onboarding, Teladoc Health physicians complete training on caring for individuals who identify as LGBTQ+.

Finally, from a regulatory perspective, it is vital that we invest and support efforts to improve access to quality healthcare for all people, everywhere. Teladoc Health is continuously advocating for key health equity issues on both the state and federal levels, working with policy makers to address persistent disparities in connectivity, access to technology, digital literacy and advancing innovative solutions to expand access to care.

With concerted effort and dedication, such as the steps we’ve taken to date at Teladoc Health, virtual care truly is the “great equalizer” in achieving a more equitable and accessible healthcare landscape. We will continue to invest in services and programs with accessibility at the forefront, and we invite our partners in the healthcare space will do the same.

For more information about this topic, tune into the accompanying episode on Modern Healthcare Custom Media’s Healthcare Insider podcast.