BOSTON, and EMERYVILLE, Calif., April 13 /PRNewswire/ -- RelayHealth Corporation, the nation's premier provider of online doctor-patient communication services, today announced that Massachusetts-based CareGroup Healthcare System (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School) has licensed the RelayHealth(R) webVisit service to enable patients to securely communicate online about medical issues with CareGroup physicians and office staff.
CareGroup, a leading Boston-based healthcare delivery system, is recognized for its long history of innovation. Its award-winning PatientSite service, https://patientsite.bidmc.harvard.edu/, launched in April, 2000, allows patients of CareGroup physicians to access their medical records, schedule appointments, request referrals and prescription refills, and search for general medical information.
As part of this initiative, the RelayHealth webVisit will be integrated into PatientSite, bringing CareGroup doctors and patients the added benefit of insurer reimbursed, clinically-structured online medical consultations. CareGroup will take advantage of RelayHealth's flexible architecture which enables it to integrate its research-backed webVisit service into health system portals and electronic medical record systems.
The RelayHealth webVisit guides the patient through an interactive, clinical interview, builds a succinct message to the physician, and arms the doctor with an array of clinical and educational tools to efficiently reply to the patient. Physician fees associated with the webVisit service are reimbursed by a growing number of health plans nationwide, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts -- the first health plan in Massachusetts to reimburse physicians for webVisits. "We're delighted to see CareGroup extend the local leadership it established with PatientSite by embracing the webVisit. We view their decision to offer webVisits as part of PatientSite as an important step forward in support of our initiative to deploy and share the benefits that the RelayHealth service offers providers and members alike," said Vincent Plourde, Vice President of Provider Services at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.
"Integrating the RelayHealth webVisit into our PatientSite service represents an important step forward in our ongoing effort to expand the clinical online service available to our patients," says Alice Lee, Vice President of Clinical Systems at CareGroup. "Patients want online access to both convenience and care services -- by integrating the webVisit into PatientSite we can offer the best of both worlds," adds Lee.
"We expect that the addition of the RelayHealth webVisit service to PatientSite will broaden its appeal to our patient and provider community, enabling improved communication around low-urgency health issues and chronic conditions," adds John Halamka, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Chief Information Officer for Harvard Medical School.
In an independent study conducted by university-based researchers at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley, more than half of physicians surveyed preferred the RelayHealth webVisit to an in-office visit for non-urgent medical issues. The study found physician satisfaction ratings exceeded 90% among regular RelayHealth users; 95% of patients who received next-business-day replies gave RelayHealth a high rating for quality and convenience.
In response to the recent growth of the Internet as a medium for patient-physician communication, and to the growing list of health plans reimbursing for webVisits, the American Medical Association recently approved a CPT (billing) code for online medical consultations. The code, announced in January, becomes effective on July 1st 2004.
"We consider the addition of CareGroup to the list of prestigious medical organizations embracing the webVisit a milestone in our efforts in the Massachusetts market," said Giovanni Colella, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer at RelayHealth. "Our colleagues at CareGroup have done pioneering work with PatientSite, and we are honored to be able to collaborate with them. This project is the first of a series of initiatives in which we will integrate our webVisit capabilities into best-of-breed clinical portal and electronic patient record applications," added Dr. Colella.
About RelayHealth Corporation
RelayHealth is the premier provider of secure online healthcare communication services linking patients, healthcare professionals, payors, and pharmacies. RelayHealth's Web-based, doctor-patient messaging platform connects doctors and their patients efficiently, affordably, and securely. Tuned for both the individual and group practice environments, the RelayHealth(R) service improves and streamlines healthcare delivery and access through modular features -- like the webVisit(R) clinical consultation -- which tackle complex issues unique to the healthcare market, including clinical structure, practice workflow, and reimbursement. More secure and efficient than telephone or e-mail, RelayHealth combines HIPAA-ready messaging and eScript(R) end-to-end electronic prescribing for the most seamless, comprehensive, and powerful messaging platform available to healthcare professionals and their patients. For information, visit http://www.relayhealth.com/.
About Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) is a major patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and ranks third in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit https://patientsite.bidmc.harvard.edu/.
RelayHealth CorporationCONTACT: Briana Pompei of RelayHealth Corporation, +1-510-428-7853, orbriana.pompei@relayhealth.com; or Jerry Berger of CareGroup, +1-617-667-7308,or jberger@bidmc.harvard.edu
Web site: http://patientsite.bidmc.harvard.edu/
Web site: http://www.relayhealth.com/
