How virtual care supports high demand for SURA’s care services
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen hospitals and brick-and-mortar healthcare facilities worldwide struggle to support large influxes of patients during waves of infections and shut their doors to non-emergency care services. Emergency rooms were over capacity, urgent care clinics had long wait times, and providers were challenged to provide care to each individual who visited their offices in search of it.
Yet outside of the most critical cases that needed emergency care, in-person services added risk for most people. Meanwhile, virtual care has been able to shine by diverting these non-critical patients from in-person care, and more importantly, allowing care services to properly scale to support larger populations in need. For Seguros SURA, a leading integrated delivery system in Colombia, Pager’s virtual care platform enabled their healthcare professionals to offer triage and care remotely, via chat, video, or phone, reserving in-person care for those who needed it most.
In a little over a year, SURA has seen weekly member encounters increase from ~3,000 a week to a peak of nearly 70,000 a week – a 35x increase. Pager’s platform supported this rapid scale and enabled SURA to help its members get the most appropriate care without overwhelming in-person clinics. To support this increase, Pager also enabled SURA to quickly onboard hundreds of clinicians and agents onto SURA’s Virtual Primary Care Center via its Enterprise Admin platform.
Virtual care spikes mirror COVID-19 cases
Each time there has been a new ‘wave’ of positive COVID-19 cases in Colombia, SURA has seen an influx in chats from individuals seeking care – both related and unrelated to COVID-19 directly. When they felt sick, needed COVID-19 information, or were wondering about visiting an in-person clinic, SURA’s virtual care team could provide information, triage, and virtual visits to help members get the care they needed, decreasing unnecessary in-person visits.
This data demonstrates when more members were seeking virtual care services, whether it be directly related to COVID-19 or simply out of a desire to receive care from home rather than an in-person setting. In this way, virtual care can also help limit the spread of COVID-19, as it can keep people from unnecessarily visiting in-person clinics where they may be at higher risk of contracting or spreading the coronavirus.
Virtual care’s flexibility for scale with automation
Importantly, SURA’s virtual care team was well-equipped with Pager’s flexible virtual care collaboration platform to support even more members at scale. When COVID-19 hit, Pager quickly launched a COVID-19 Intake Bot to separate COVID and non-COVID conversations, helping to direct members to the right agent for their needs. The platform enables agents to manage multiple chats simultaneously and also leverages AI Triage Bots to help agents work more efficiently, ensuring that members receive quick care and can get connected to the right care for them. While brick and mortar healthcare facilities have finite resources and space to serve only a certain number of patients, virtual care offers scalability to support more individuals, more quickly.
Supporting demand for care, without increasing physical capacity
For SURA, who in addition to providing health insurance for its members also has many in-person care clinics throughout Colombia, it was critical that these clinics not be overburdened, especially during COVID-19 spikes. Virtual care offers a way to divert patients away from in-person care when clinically appropriate in order to use resources more appropriately, and ultimately lower wait times and risks for patients who need non-COVID services.
Dr. Maria Juliana Gaviria, SURA’s Virtual Healthcare Model Process Lead and former Medical Coordinator for SURA’s Virtual Primary Care Center, recalled a memorable experience in which virtual care made all the difference for a SURA member. A mother reached out via chat to get support for her 4-month-old child who had a high fever. The family was in a rural area, far from any in-person clinic – and it was raining so severely that the family was unable to leave the house for days. SURA’s virtual care, powered by Pager, managed to solve the situation without requiring the family to make a dangerous trip; the mother was able to chat with a pediatrician, who provided guidance and the baby recovered at home without the need for in-person care.
Virtual care and in-person care need to work hand-in-hand, especially during times of high-demand such as the COVID-19 pandemic. By providing virtual-first nurse triage, SURA offers its members a way to first get care from home, and only visit in-person facilities for care when it is necessary. This also allows healthcare providers offering in-person care to focus on the individuals most in need of in-person care and enables all healthcare professionals to work at the top of their licenses.
When virtual care serves as a complement to in-person care, patients get the most appropriate care and services for them, and both individuals and organizations see lower costs and better outcomes. By focusing on virtual-first care and nurse triage, SURA has seen unprecedented numbers of members turning toward virtual care to ensure they are getting the right care for them – and were able to reserve in-person clinics for those who needed them most.
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