SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Jan. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- InTouch Health, the leading enterprise telehealth platform, today announced partnerships with North Carolina-based Mission Health and Pennsylvania-based Jefferson Health to jointly develop new telehealth solutions to improve patient access and quality of care while reducing overall healthcare costs.

After years of working separately with InTouch Health, Jefferson Health and Mission Health will be sharing learnings from past projects and working together to design mutually-beneficial and innovative telehealth programs to address their most pressing healthcare needs. Over five years, the partners will continue their commercial relationships and identify new areas – primarily within acute care and outpatient care – where providers can use telehealth technology to streamline access to care and increase care coordination. Leveraging the scalable InTouch Telehealth Network, a collaborative team from all three organizations will work to develop software and systems applications to support these goals for use by Jefferson, Mission, and the broader healthcare market nationwide.

InTouch Health will work with both health systems to create virtual care models across 10 identified use cases, including stroke, sepsis, and acute heart failure. Once developed, those care models will be tested at Jefferson Health, primarily an urban setting, and Mission Health, primarily a suburban/rural setting, to ensure the care pathways and supporting technologies improve patient access and quality of care and are applicable across markets and geographies.

"Mission Health is a committed and recognized leader in quality and innovation, and we strive to provide the most advanced and efficiently delivered care possible for all of our patients – no matter their location," said Ronald A. Paulus, MD, President and CEO of Mission Health, a Top 15 Health System for five of the past six years. "In the mostly rural and mountainous counties of western North Carolina, technologies like the InTouch Telehealth Network allow our patients and communities to have the same access to state-of-the-art, highly specialized care as patients in large cities."

"Jefferson prides itself on being a 194-year-old institution behaving like a start-up company by understanding that innovation and technology will drive improved access and outcomes for patients," said Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, President and CEO of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, a 14-hospital, Philadelphia-based health system that is listed as the 16th-ranked hospital in the country by U.S. News & World Report. "By partnering with InTouch, we are leveraging their technology and bringing it to our patients, allowing them to access our specialized physicians when and where they need them."

"InTouch Health is thrilled to work with Mission Health and Jefferson Health – two leading healthcare institutions – to further advance the capabilities of telehealth to improve health systems' ability to virtualize the delivery of care," said Joseph M. DeVivo, InTouch Health Chief Executive Officer. "We look forward to discovering new ways telehealth can help innovate healthcare to drive efficiencies that will improve quality of care and increase both patient and physician satisfaction."

Prior to this collaborative effort, Jefferson Health had a long-standing relationship with InTouch Health, leveraging the company's telestroke solution for close to 10 years and serving 30 hospitals in the Jefferson Neuroscience Network. Mission Health has also had a long-standing relationship with InTouch Health providing telehealth services throughout western North Carolina, including one of North Carolina's longest standing telestroke networks as well as telepscyhiatric, tele-hospitalist, and tele-neonatology programs. 

About InTouch Health
InTouch Health, the top-rated vendor in KLAS Research's Telehealth Virtual Care Platforms 2017 performance report, provides its world class, 24/7 monitored InTouch Telehealth Network, comprised of regulated telehealth systems, clinical workflow solutions and software, and managed services to hospitals and healthcare systems for the delivery of clinical care, anytime, anywhere. Today, InTouch Health supports more than 130 healthcare systems, 7,700 registered network users and 1,780 care locations around the world as they deploy telehealth programs across their enterprises. InTouch Health has surpassed 1,680,000 network sessions, which includes 940,000 telehealth virtual care sessions over the InTouch Telehealth Network, and is forecasted to manage more than 300,000 clinical sessions in the next year.  To learn more, please visit: www.intouchhealth.com

About Mission Health
Mission Health, based in Asheville, North Carolina, is the state's sixth-largest health system. For the fifth time in the past six years, Mission Health has been named one of the nation's Top 15 Health Systems by Truven Health Analytics, an IBM Company and part of IBM Watson Health in 2017. We are the only health system in North Carolina to achieve this recognition. Mission Health operates six hospitals, numerous outpatient and surgery centers, post-acute care provider CarePartners, long-term acute care provider Asheville Specialty Hospital, and the region's only dedicated Level II trauma center. With approximately 12,000 team members and 2,000 volunteers, Mission Health is dedicated to improving the health and wellness of the people of western North Carolina. For more information, please visit mission-health.org or @MissionHealthNC.

About Jefferson Health 
Jefferson Health, home of Sidney Kimmel Medical College, is reimagining health care in the greater Philadelphia region and southern New Jersey. Jefferson's dedicated team of doctors, nurses, health professionals and staff provides a range of primary to highly-specialized care through 14 hospitals (three Magnet®-designated for nursing excellence), more than 50 outpatient and urgent care locations, the NCI-designated Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and the JeffConnect® telemedicine program. Jefferson's academic health center, Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Inc., is recognized by US News & World Report as #16 on the 2017-18 Best Hospitals Honor Roll.  Jefferson Health's mission is to improve the health of those patients and communities it is privileged to serve through safe, effective, equitable, compassionate care.

SOURCE InTouch Health

Related Links

http://www.intouchhealth.com