As announced at ATA 2014, the Cleveland Clinic www.clevelandclinic.org and HealthSpot www.healthspot.net have formed a joint venture to offer patients convenient, alternative options to access healthcare through technology and HealthSpot’s virtual walk-in kiosks.
HealthSpot® stations are private 8 by 5 foot enclosures outfitted with touch screens, integrated medical devices, and video conferencing capabilities. The objective is to enable Cleveland Clinic medical providers to see and treat patients in a variety of nontraditional healthcare settings, like universities, employment situations, and at retail locations. Each station is also supported by an on-site accredited medical assistant.
“Healthcare innovation is essential to make care more accessible to patients. This relationship allows patients to use the latest technology to connect to Cleveland Clinic experts in a more convenient way,” said Toby Cosgrove, M.D., CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic. “This strengthens our ability to meet the growing needs of patients in everyday settings, delivering higher value for their healthcare dollar.”
The station’s two-way high definition video screen delivers a unique face-to-face experience between patients and medical providers. An array of digital medical devices are embedded in each unit such as in stethoscopes, scales, blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, thermometers, otoscopes, and dermascopes and stream medical information to the provider and patient in real-time.
Patients can conveniently walk up to a station without scheduling an appointment and be treated for minor, common health conditions, including cold and flu, rashes and skin conditions, eye conditions, earaches, sore throats, sinus infections, upper respiratory infections, and seasonal allergies. HealthSpot station visits can be fully integrated into a patient’s Cleveland Clinic Electronic Medical Record, ensuring seamless communication and continuity of care.
Last May, Cleveland Clinic launched a successful one year pilot of HealthSpot stations in three of its family health centers and received an overall 93 percent patient satisfaction score. Cleveland Clinic has been offering patients second opinions remotely over the internet with its “MyConsult” program since 2002. More recently, the hospital has been piloting a number of technologies in remote monitoring, home health, virtual visits, and other areas of telemedicine.
According to Steve Cashman, the Founder and CEO of HealthSpot, “We are working with the leaders in the retail pharmacy segment to evolve the current retail clinic solution which are disconnected and incur high overhead.” He adds, “With HealthSpot’s platform and our open Care Network, we work within the local provider ecosystem and are able to promote a better patient-provider relationship.”
At ATA 2014 on May 19th, HealthSpot announced their new partnership with Kaiser Permanente San Diego, to deliver a pilot station to a key customer of Kaiser Permanente, an employee group in San Diego. This makes it possible for the HealthSpot walk-in station to specifically help Kaiser Permanente providers remotely care for, monitor, and follow-up with patients via high definition video conferencing and interactive digital medical devices.