Daniel Albert, MD: Telemedicine for Rheumatic Care

Telemedicine has been a boutique enterprise for the last dozen years, but recently, due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it has become front and center for many practitioners, including those focused on rheumatic care.

Daniel Albert, MD, of Dartmouth-Hitchcock, told HCPLive® in a recent interview that many providers and patients have had to do a quick ramp-up for the tools necessary to conduct such care and be cared for in such a way.

“It seems like it’s been very appealing to both groups and hopefully it will continue in largely the current format rather than the one that was unfortunately highly, highly regulated with a lot of barriers before COVID,” Albert said.

For Albert, he has an electronic health record (EHR) with a variant for his institution which permits a great deal of flexibility in terms of communication between patients and providers. The EHR allows for written documents, videos, still photos, and verbal and written interchange.

The platform that allows Albert to have a seamless video interaction with patients is called Vidyo. There are other variants that may have improved video or audio. A newer variant could allow for more devices being connected to the same interphase, and on Albert’s end, other students and staff members can be a part of the call to facilitate the conduct of the counter.

Providers are being careful to stay away from non-HIPAA compliant platforms like FaceTime and Skype.