Converge platform provides a single meeting place for virtual care needs across the care continuum; open architecture supports third party innovators
Amwell®, (NYSE: AMWL) a national telehealth leader, today unveiled its next-generation Converge™ telehealth platform at its annual Client Forum. Born out of the profound shift in telehealth usage during the COVID 19 pandemic, from transactional to longitudinal care, this flexible and scalable platform is designed to provide deeper connectivity between healthcare players with unmatched simplicity, reliability, and scalability. With the Converge platform, Amwell’s products, programs, modules and Carepoint™ devices, as well as applications from leading innovators, will be available in one place with a single code base, further enhancing Amwell’s seamless and unified care experience and strengthening existing patient provider relationships across all types of care.
“Digital distribution of care is here,” said Dr. Roy Schoenberg, President and co-CEO, Amwell. “Telehealth morphed, almost overnight, from a promising technology to an existential platform in the operation of healthcare – alongside EHRs, claim systems and e-prescribing. We are witnessing a new consensus that the future care of any one patient will inevitably involve a mix of physical, digital and asynchronous/AI-based care. We designed the Converge platform to support, simplify, and delight patients, clinicians, and the healthcare tenants around them, as they rapidly embrace this new balance of care. Its open architecture invites customers and innovators to extend their reach, and all of us to imagine a more graceful healthcare experience, with technology on our side.”
The platform’s open architecture is designed to host and operate applications from innovators – further enabling rapid progress towards digitally enabled healthcare. By embracing a diverse group of developers as part of the platform, clients are able to pick and choose the capabilities that matter most to them. Examples include:
- Google Cloud: Leveraging AI and natural language processing technologies powered by Google Cloud, real-time captioning and translation services will advance provider choices for patient education by surfacing related health education materials based on a patient’s visit. AI-powered tools will engage patients and their care teams before, during and after visits to drive better health insights and outcomes.
- TytoCare: Livestream integration enables improved diagnosis and treatment for virtual visits using the award-winning TytoCare handheld exam kit featuring built-in visual guidance technology.
- The Clinic: Providers can request virtual second opinion services for patients, connecting them to one of 3,500 Cleveland Clinic physicians in over 550 advanced sub-specialties via the Amwell platform.
- Biobeat: Offering a wearable, wireless remote patient monitoring device in two forms: a wrist-monitor for long-term use and a disposable chest-monitor for short-term use, Biobeat provides a tool for the continuous monitoring of 15 vital signs including: blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygenation and respiratory rate. Biobeat devices are used by healthcare organizations and pharma companies globally; a Biobeat app would enable providers to receive alerts on patient health status and potential deterioration via an AI-powered, automated real-time early warning score system.
In addition, Amwell offered a peek at its forthcoming Home TV solution. Developed in collaboration with Solaborate, the Home TV Carepoint device, powered by advanced AI, is designed to bring hospital care into the home environment via an easy-to-use TV-based experience.
“We realize that transformation is all about partnership and collaboration,” said Dr. Ido Schoenberg, Chairman and co-CEO, Amwell. “By bringing together Amwell’s best-in-class solutions with those from across the ecosystem, we are uniquely able to deliver a solution that both supports a long list of capabilities across the full care continuum, from episodic to longitudinal care, and enables native connectivity between all players. We also understand that these players have unique needs, and these needs will evolve, so we have built the Converge platform to be highly scalable, modular and future-ready, giving clients the ability to reimagine new ways of using telehealth over time.”
“At the start of the pandemic, we integrated telehealth as a way to meet demand but have quickly realized the need to make telehealth a permanent component of our care access model,” said Susan Pleasants, MD, the Chief Medical Informatics Officer with M Health Fairview. “Core to the success of our program and high satisfaction rates thus far has been having a virtual care platform that is fully integrated with our EHR and embedded in our patient portal. These components have allowed us to create a more simple, more cohesive user experience for both patients and providers, while helping us increase efficiency and expand the reach of our virtual services to other community locations.”
Central to the Converge platform is its enhanced reliability and simplicity, featuring fast and reliable video and audio connections and the ability to easily upgrade these core components over time – ensuring that clients have access to the best connectivity experience for the future. The platform can be integrated with existing workflows, EHRs, patient portals, and consumer experiences, to support the delivery of care no matter where the patient or provider originates and resulting in faster and easier deployment. The single platform approach means a unified identity system that enables a streamlined and regulatory compliant exchange of information and services across the ecosystem.
“UPMC Health Plan expanded its telehealth capacity during the pandemic to meet increasing member demand, which quintupled in the 12 months after the start of the pandemic,” said Natasha Khouri, Associate Vice President, Telehealth Strategy Solutions, UPMC Health Plan. “The past year has proven that telemedicine can be a convenient, clinically appropriate means by which to deliver accessible, high-quality health care to our members and we expect to continue to add even more virtual care options to further strengthen member-provider relationships and improve health outcomes.”
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