This article highlights the use of a mobile e-consult platform initiated by the  Centre of Addiction Medicine in India, in light of the need for substance use services during the COVID-19 lockdown. The mobile e-consult platform was found to be a promising method to serve patients with substance use disorders, as it enabled providers to easily transmit cases and queries to specialists. Specialists received…

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The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a Pain E-Consult Program (PEP), a multidisciplinary telementoring service based on the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) model to reduce opioid use in the outpatient setting. A PEP was associated with greater reductions in morphine milligram equivalent (MME)/day compared with usual care despite similar rates…

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This study aims to determine which psychiatric diagnoses are most commonly used for e-consults  inquiries, what types of questions are being asked by primary care providers to psychiatrists via e-consults, and what questions and which diagnoses result in a recommendation for in-person evaluations by psychiatrists. The study found that certain diagnoses and question types appear to influence…

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A new study explores he demand for neurology services at Geisinger, which exceeds the current clinical capacity. The utility of Ask-a-Doc (AAD), an electronic medical record-based interface developed at Geisinger to facilitate communication between primary care physicians (PCPs) and specialists, was implemented and assessed. It was found that AAD provides an interface between PCPs and…

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A manuscript published in the International Journal of Quality Health Care titled, “Improving Primary Care Access to Respirologists Using eConsult” describes the findings from a retrospective review of 26,679 respirology eConsults. The publication details the most common topics and the most common types of questions asked by PCPs. The analysis found that in 23% of…

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The recent retrospective cohort study, “Clinical Effectiveness of an Outpatient Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management Telementoring Service,” published in the Clinical Journal of Pain, demonstrates the effectiveness of e-consult in reducing opioid use. The pain e-consult program (PEP) used in the study is a multidisciplinary telementoring service based on the ECHO model. The findings indicate that…

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The use of e-consult has emerged as a useful tool for primary care providers (PCPs) to quickly obtain non-urgent, patient-specific, expert advice from specialists. The COVID-19 pandemic forced health systems to rapidly implement and scale telehealth alternatives to in-person care to prevent exposure to the contagious respiratory virus. A recent study from Massachusetts General Hospital…

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Catalyst, a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) publication, released a case study titled E-Consult Innovation: A Middle-Ground Model To Enhance Adoption and Improve Care. This study tested the efficacy of alternative operational and financial models for e-Consult. HealthPartners designed a vertically integrated system that engaged third-party payers and implemented an in-house method to compensate specialists and primary care…

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This month’s webinar started with presentations by Grace Song, MD, CA Correctional Health Services Deputy Medical Executive and Stanley Frencher, Jr., MD, CEO of HubMD on increased e-consult use for correctional healthcare since the COVID-19 surge. Then Aasta Thielke, MPH from the Center for Evidence-Based Policy, gave a detailed presentation on the research methods and conclusions of…

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In this opinion piece, Dr. Barnett argues that fewer visits caused by the pandemic is a much needed and welcome change in managing patients’ healthcare. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/11/after-pandemic-visiting-doctor-will-never-be-same-thats-fine/

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