Table 4.

Goal for Future Virtual Services: Enhance Patient Experiences

Increase Access to Care	Improve Convenience of Care
Administrators described efforts to improve patients' access to care through: Virtual urgent care services to allow patients increased access to care for acute needs. Asynchronous e-visits where patients complete symptom-specific questionnaires and then receive a diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Blending follow-up schedules (e.g., mix of in-person and virtual).	Administrators aimed to make care more convenient via: Video appointments to reduce travel burden (which may be particularly useful in rural areas). Expanded hours through virtual care (e.g., allowing patients to seek care on their schedule).
“We have an urgent care telehealth service. It dominated, 3:1 ratio, female to male. It is dominated by 20, 30, and 40-year-old women. That's who is using it. It makes complete sense. The hours that they want it are completely different hours than what traditional services are. They want the service at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning because they need to know first thing in the morning, not waiting until 9:00. It's everything Starbucks has always known.” “Well, this patient is due for an A1C, but we haven't actually seen them in two years. So let's make sure that we outreach to them. And then that conversation's a lot easier because we can say, ‘Hey, well, we do have telehealth available.’”	“How do we provide that virtual urgent care in the most simplest fashion possible? How do we make it as convenient 24 hours a day when that night shift worker gets off work, or when that day shift gets off work. We need to be able to provide convenient and accessible care and meet the patients where they are, which is on their mobile devices, which is on the go, which is synchronous as well as asynchronous.” “However, we need to be thinking about it as a tool to truly be able to deliver on that 24/7 care so one of the things that we have been working with our teams for is to say your traditional clinic is open from 8 pm to four or 5 pm the majority of individuals are working at those same hours, so how do we meet consumer demand as more of a 24 seven approach, because you know when you are seeking care.”

Increase Access to Care

Improve Convenience of Care

Administrators described efforts to improve patients' access to care through:

Virtual urgent care services to allow patients increased access to care for acute needs.
Asynchronous e-visits where patients complete symptom-specific questionnaires and then receive a diagnosis and appropriate treatment.
Blending follow-up schedules (e.g., mix of in-person and virtual).

Administrators aimed to make care more convenient via:

Video appointments to reduce travel burden (which may be particularly useful in rural areas).
Expanded hours through virtual care (e.g., allowing patients to seek care on their schedule).

“We have an urgent care telehealth service. It dominated, 3:1 ratio, female to male. It is dominated by 20, 30, and 40-year-old women. That's who is using it. It makes complete sense. The hours that they want it are completely different hours than what traditional services are. They want the service at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning because they need to know first thing in the morning, not waiting until 9:00. It's everything Starbucks has always known.”
“Well, this patient is due for an A1C, but we haven't actually seen them in two years. So let's make sure that we outreach to them. And then that conversation's a lot easier because we can say, ‘Hey, well, we do have telehealth available.’”

“How do we provide that virtual urgent care in the most simplest fashion possible? How do we make it as convenient 24 hours a day when that night shift worker gets off work, or when that day shift gets off work. We need to be able to provide convenient and accessible care and meet the patients where they are, which is on their mobile devices, which is on the go, which is synchronous as well as asynchronous.”
“However, we need to be thinking about it as a tool to truly be able to deliver on that 24/7 care so one of the things that we have been working with our teams for is to say your traditional clinic is open from 8 pm to four or 5 pm the majority of individuals are working at those same hours, so how do we meet consumer demand as more of a 24 seven approach, because you know when you are seeking care.”

Abbreviations: A1C test, also known as the hemoglobin A1C or HbA1c test is a simple blood test that measures your average blood sugar levels over the past 3 months.