During his years in private practice, physician Samant Virk realized a problem: He wasn’t able to provide the care he knew he was capable of. The difficulty stemmed from communication issues as well as an inefficient use of his time.
This prompted him to look into video visits and eventually cofound a startup — MediSprout — with Randy Findley. In a recent phone interview, Virk elaborated on the New York City-based company’s mission and goals.
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“The value of healthcare is in the relationship with the doctor,” he said. “We want to create a telehealth solution that actually augments it.”
Rather than creating a telemedicine tool that gives patients one-off visits with a random doctor, MediSprout seeks to build on the continuity of an existing relationship between a physician and his or her patient.
Another one of its aims is to emphasize making healthcare more of a conversation between doctor and consumer.
“In healthcare, I believe one of the things that’s overlooked is that communication is two ways,” Virk said. “We are trying to focus on the idea that technology can augment that relationship between doctors and their patients.”
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The model behind MediSprout and its V2MD telehealth solution works like this: Health systems and private practices can reach out directly to the company to get started. The setup process is fairly fast and comes at no cost to the hospital. There is a minimal cost for white labeling the solution. Additionally, MediSprout has a per visit fee of $4. Health systems can choose to either pay that amount themselves or have the patients pay it.
A doctor using V2MD can directly schedule a visit with a patient, and the patient receives a secure link via email through which they can join the virtual appointment. A hospital can also enable a feature that allows patients to schedule video visits with their physician through the V2MD website or app.
One of MediSprout’s clients is Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Within the hospital is the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center, which houses a subspecialty medical home called GRITT-IBD (Gaining Resilience Through Transitions). The facility, which treats complex IBD patients, relies on V2MD to stay connected with individuals when they’re outside the hospital setting.
Providers use the solution to provide psychosocial care, offer nutritional advice, tackle medication side effects and manage other general IBD symptoms.
“Our team-based care model is effective in reducing these negative outcomes, but telemedicine is critical to making sure patients are able to engage in the program,” Laurie Keefer, health psychologist and director of GRITT-IBD, said in a phone interview.
Using telehealth as an engagement and connection tool resulted in reduced patient ER visits and hospitalization rates, she added.
Photo: nito100, Getty Images
