American Well, a telehealth technology and services company, has launches a new enterprise telehealth service, Exchange, with the purpose of connecting telehealth supply and demand online.
Several large health systems and major payers, including Cleveland Clinic, Nemours Children’s Health System and LiveHealth Online, the American Well-powered telehealth system for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield have signed on as starting partners to redistribute and share healthcare services online.
“The Exchange breaks down silos of healthcare delivery and connects every stakeholder in the industry— those who seek care, deliver care, and pay for it—to make great, trusted healthcare more accessible,” Roy Schoenberg, M.D., CEO, co-founder, American Well, said in a statement.
Added Schoenberg, “We want to do for healthcare what Amazon did for book stores initially, and online retail, ultimately, which is to establish a national platform on which online healthcare runs. Importantly this platform is not just about connecting consumers to more doctors. Rather, we can connect consumers with the best provider brands across the United States as part of a national, virtual healthcare system.”
American Well offers telehealth services to more than 100 million people. American Well’s partners have typically fallen into one of two categories—supply generators (organizations that supply healthcare services, such as a hospital or health system) and demand generators (organizations that generate consumer demand, such as a health insurer or employer). And, these partners have built best-in-class telehealth programs that leverage their unique brands, provider expertise, clinical services, technologies, and unique ties to their local communities, the company said.
With the Exchange, these organizations can connect and exchange their services with one another, instantly, online, according to American Well.
Cleveland Clinic will begin offering its services on the LiveHealth Online platform, a telehealth service for live, video consults with a provider to obtain diagnosis and receive treatment for common urgent care conditions, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Through this service, consumers who access LiveHealth Online in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania can connect with Cleveland Clinic Nurse Practitioners for live video consults.
Nemours Children’s Health System is a pediatric health system headquartered in Florida and the Nemours CareConnect is a service that leverages American Well technology to offer pediatric video consults in Delaware, Florida and Pennsylvania. Through the Exchange, consumers in Florida who use American Well’s consumer telehealth platform, Amwell, will have access to Nemours’ pediatricians 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Later this year, Nemours will expand this service to Delaware and Pennsylvania.
According to Schoenberg, the regulatory climate is also becoming increasingly favorable to cross-pollination of healthcare services, across state lines. In 2015, the Federation of State Medical Boards introduced a new, expedited pathway to licensure for qualified physicians who wish to practice in multiple states, called the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact. The process to obtain expedited licensing is coming in summer 2016, after which multistate telemedicine licenses will be issued to any doctor who wants it. “This means that provider organizations entering the Exchange and redistributing their services in other geographies can expect expedited, multistate licensure for their physicians,” the company stated.
