‘Off the charts’ patient satisfaction at LifeBridge Health’s virtual urgent care center
LifeBridge Health, based in Owings Mills, Maryland, faced two primary telemedicine challenges: improving operational efficiency and increasing patient adoption.
THE CHALLENGE
Dr. Jonathan Thierman, president and chief executive, ExpressCare and Children’s Urgent Care, at LifeBridge Health, previously had set up the LifeBridge Health Virtual Health Center. From that experience he knew an efficient telemedicine operation would reduce friction for patients, making it easier for them to adopt the new process.
However, in the urgent care setting, he saw that few patients were using telemedicine and that wait times were far too long.
Beyond these primary challenges, the health system also encountered several technical obstacles. It explored multiple telehealth platforms, each offering a range of features. Ultimately, it found the most important capabilities were those that tightly integrated the platform into patient registration and provider workflows.
PROPOSAL
“We operate a highly efficient network of nearly 35 urgent care centers across Maryland,” Thierman said. “One key to our efficiency is our ‘cut-and-paste’ approach – ensuring every detail, from supplies and facility layout to workflow and staffing, is as consistent as possible across all locations.
“This standardization allows us to identify inefficiencies once and implement solutions systemwide,” he continued. “It also gives us flexibility in staffing, enabling providers and medical assistants to seamlessly transition between centers without disruption.”
Through this approach, staff identified a significant inefficiency: the occasional telemedicine visit inserted into a provider’s in-person workflow. These visits disrupted the standard process, creating bottlenecks and making wait times unpredictable for telemedicine patients.
Often, virtual patients were left waiting in their “virtual room” while the provider focused on in-person care, unintentionally deprioritizing them simply because they were “out of sight, out of mind.”
“To address this, we created a standalone ‘telemedicine site’ that functions like an independent center within our network,” Thierman explained. “This new center operates with its own P&L, dedicated staff and schedules. Registration, billing and other processes mirror those of our physical centers to maintain consistency.
“By consolidating telemedicine workflows into a single, specialized center, we aimed to eliminate inefficiencies, improve patient throughput, and, ultimately, increase telemedicine adoption,” he added.
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
For the telemedicine site, LifeBridge Health followed the same process it had used to set up new locations in the past. It hired new staff and providers and established business operations, workflow patterns, and front- and back-end processes to match those of the physical sites as closely as possible.
“On our website and scheduling platforms, we clearly designated ‘Telemedicine’ as a new location, making it easy for patients to select a virtual visit instead of an in-person appointment,” Thierman explained. “For simplicity and integration, we opted to use the basic built-in telemedicine platform within our EHR, Experity.
“For a brief period, we collaborated with the platform’s parent company to experiment with additional features and enhancements,” he continued.
“However, we ultimately determined a streamlined approach was best, minimizing potential complications. This allowed us to maintain an integrated telemedicine platform that leveraged the same EHR functionality patients and staff were already familiar with for scheduling appointments.”
RESULTS
Almost overnight, telemedicine patient volume doubled with the launch of the virtual center. Within a few months, it had tripled. At the same time, LifeBridge Health significantly reduced wait times and improved patient throughput, creating a highly efficient system with exceptional patient satisfaction, Thierman noted.
“Our new virtual urgent care center offered extremely short wait times and allowed providers to see nearly twice as many patients as they would in the same period for in-person visits,” he said.
“As a result, when we measured patient satisfaction scores – something we routinely do for all our locations – the telemedicine center’s scores were off the charts. Since then, we have continued to grow patient volumes while maintaining high throughput and patient satisfaction metrics.
“We recognized the future of urgent care would include virtual encounters and telemedicine visits, whether we provided the service or someone else did,” he continued. “Instead of worrying about cannibalizing our own business, we focused on delivering the best telemedicine experience possible.”
While revenue per telemedicine visit was lower than for in-person visits, the reduced overhead and infrastructure costs – combined with the ability to see more patients per hour – resulted in strong margins for this business line after transitioning to the virtual center model.”
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