Telehealth Strategy and Business Planning

In 2018 and 2019, Catholic Health (CHS) was investing in both its strategic operating model and technology platforms. CHS envisioned utilizing the vast data generated through its streamlined technology to understand patient and provider insights necessary to transform care.

A key component of CHS’s vision was developing a comprehensive digital and telehealth ecosystem. CHS saw nearly 100,000 ED visits annually. Approximately 42,000 of those visits were considered low acuity. Telehealth provided the opportunity to convert a percentage of those low-acuity ED visits to virtual visits, reducing costs and improving patient experience and satisfaction. The organization engaged ECG to lead a current-state assessment and telehealth business plan development process.

ECG interviewed 20-plus stakeholders across the CHS enterprise, representing operations and service lines, IT, payer strategy, finance, business development, and marketing, as well as patient advocates and physicians. Through these conversations, ECG surfaced leadership perspectives on the strategic imperatives for establishing a telehealth offering and the factors unique to the Western New York market that could be addressed through a telehealth program. ECG then led CHS through a strategic visioning process focused on understanding best practices and “futurist” telehealth concepts. Additional work streams included the following:

• Conducting a capacity analysis to determine optimal FTE counts to provide 24x7 coverage
• Identifying opportunities to reduce cost of care and improve quality through alternative payment models/risk-sharing models with payers
• Developing a clinical integration strategy to offer telehealth visits through independent provider practices and urgent care groups

Following this visioning process, ECG worked with key leaders to develop a comprehensive business plan that articulated the following for CHS:

• Telehealth strategic imperatives
• Guiding principles
• Prioritized use case roadmap
• Program governance
• Financial projections
• Implementation project plan

Ultimately, ECG and CHS work groups partnered to manage the implementation of CHS’s initial telehealth use cases and scale telehealth offerings to multiple direct-to-consumer patient populations. Within the first four months, nearly 10% of the eligible population was enrolled, patient satisfaction rated high, and visit time and wait time averages measured low.