ATA 2019: A Shifting Telemedicine Landscape - GlobalMed

A few weeks ago, every leader in the telemedicine world gathered in New Orleans to attend ATA 2019. As the official conference WiFi sponsor, the GlobalMed team was excited to meet with top healthcare and technology experts and help attendees find solutions to their virtual care challenges.

Leaders shared a goldmine of telemedicine insights in the panels. Topics included virtual care reimbursement, telemedicine’s impact on social determinants of health, and specific new care delivery models for children and seniors. Other speakers shared Big Tech healthcare initiatives, and ideas to grow hospital capacity without brick and mortar expansion.

If these panels sound fascinating, they were – and so were the attendee dialogues they sparked on using the latest virtual care innovations to lower healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes.

The Quest for Quality Virtual Care

One surprise from the conference: attendance seemed to be lighter than in previous years. We speculated that because almost every mature health delivery system now has some type of telemedicine model in place, fewer teams needed to explore new vendors this year.

Another observation: while telemedicine is becoming ubiquitous, high-quality virtual care isn’t as widely available. We know because attendees asked the GlobalMed team for help. They were aware of the limitations of other vendor systems – and they were intrigued by several GlobalMed offerings such as:

• GlobalMed’s collaboration with OraVu’s DeVA-1, a dental micro-endoscope that offers a less invasive, less expensive and less painful treatment for periodontal disease. Instead of painful flap surgery, the DeVA-1 microendoscopic system lets dental clinicians remove plaque without an expensive and invasive process. Our eNcounter® software turns the DeVA-1 into an advanced teledentistry solution for hygienists, dentists and periodontists who’d like to collaborate remotely. Given that half of Americans over age 30 have periodontal disease, both dental clinicians and providers from integrated care systems were enthusiastic about this tool.
• Our eNcounter® software and data-driven diagnostic devices. Secure interoperability was an ongoing theme at the conference, with many attendees looking for telemedicine systems that let them collect or share data easily and with a high level of security. They were pleased to learn that our solutions can share data with anyone regardless of their EMR and other systems – which is the foundation of evidence-based virtual care.
• Our Transportable Exam Station and other telemedicine stations, which accommodate a wide range of examination and diagnostic capabilities. Attendees saw how our integrated solutions provide both mobile and stationary hubs for advanced telemedicine encounters – and that those encounters are the most secure in the industry, thanks to our virtual care platform being available in the HITRUST-certified Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Azure’s robust cloud hosting capabilities also offer speed and guaranteed uptime.

Telemedicine’s Clinical Evolution

One remark summed up the reactions of ATA attendees: while the floor seemed to offer a market of medical devices, GlobalMed was providing actual virtual care solutions. Not only do we provide all hardware, software, and devices on one platform, but providers can use our eNcounter® software and devices with other solutions. Some attendees were so enthusiastic that they stayed at our booth asking questions long after the conference ended and other booths were torn down around us.

There’s no doubt that ATA attendees are eager to redefine the healthcare landscape. They were looking for cost savings, patient engagement, and the ability to meet the rising demand for virtual care – but mostly they were concerned with being able to deliver responsible medicine through technological innovation. That’s what GlobalMed provides and we enjoyed our many conversations with attendees who share our goal of transforming healthcare globally.

If you’re ready for that conversation, let us know. We’re happy to answer any questions you have about how we can solve your care delivery challenges.