Virtual On-Line Visits (VOVs) Support Physician/Patient Interactions

I have published a number of previous notes about the efficiency of physician emails to patients, also referred to as on-line consultations and e-consultations. Here is one example: Doctors Slow to Adopt Email with Patients. Here's another note about the relevance of e-consultations for PCPs: More on Redefining the Role of the PCP. It turns out that a new term is also being used to describe physician interactions with patients: virtual on-line visits (VOVs). A recent article discussed this type of consultation (see: US doctors offer online consultations) and highlighted a web site, RelayHealth, that can be used to enable them. Below is an excerpt from the article with boldface emphasis mine:

When Dr Michelle Eads makes a house call, she no longer has to spend time in her car sitting in traffic....[She] checks on several of her patients by logging onto the internet and answering their questions online....Virtual Online Visits (VOVs) are more efficient and convenient since they don't require a telephone call, being placed on hold, missing work, arranging for a sitter, paying for parking....RelayHealth, a website that describes itself as a secure, private way of communicating with a doctor, hopes to overcome those anxieties. Last year, two major US health insurers began aggressively marketing RelayHealth to about 1 million doctors across the US....A study by the New York market research firm...confirms the increase in doctors' use of the internet to serve patients. Thirty-one per cent of family doctors are offering online consultation, up from 19 per cent in 2003....[Dr. Eads] uses the internet frequently for people complaining about upper respiratory infections, sinusitis and chronic disease management, including follow-ups for controlling hypertension and diabetes.'I still see patients every six months if they are well controlled, but the three-month in-between appointments are easily handled in this format,' she said. The cost of a VOV is 25 dollars ...while a traditional visit to a doctor's office costs 65 to 85....

Here's some background reading about RelayHealth copied the company's web site:

McKesson, the world's largest healthcare services company, has begun the assimilation of Per-Se Technologies,...a leading provider of financial and administrative healthcare solutions for hospitals, physicians and retail pharmacies. McKesson completed the Per-Se acquisition on Jan. 26, 2007....The acquisition [of Per-Se] also gives McKesson the opportunity to combine the connectivity assets from both companies into a new business known as RelayHealth. RelayHealth will expand on McKesson's current physician-patient communications business with a focus on helping to decrease administrative costs and improve care by connecting physicians and other providers, pharmacies, payors, and consumers.

So we learn that RelayHealth not only provides a vehicle for physician VOVs but also provides connectivity between physicians and pharmacies/payors. My quick tour of the service on the web site revealed it to be impressive. Of note is the fact that all electronic transactions are stored and retrievable, generating what is referred to as an interactive medical record. Not surprisingly, the drug-prescribing application is particularly well done.