When developing a virtual care strategy for your organization, there are no shortage of options. Building on your own, buying outside your EHR, and partnering with Ovatient each solve virtual care differently. Our chart below breaks down the trade-offs in speed, patient experience, and IT burden so you can see where each path actually lands.
Build, Buy or Partner
What to Consider When Launching a Virtual-First Strategy
Build & Operate In-House
Buy Third-Party Virtual Care
Recommended
Partner with Ovatient
Speed to launch & value creation
✕
Slow to scale
You build the virtual to in-person workflows and care model. Recruiting rests solely with you.
~
Capacity for virtual only, not virtual-first
Clinicians ready but connection to in-person teams is a challenge
✓
Established practice, Epic-first approach
Dedicated, credentialed care team with established virtual-first workflows
Investment & financial exposure
✕
Upfront cost, idle capacity
Fund staffing & tech before demand matures
~
Costs beyond vendor fees
Interfaces and platform admin add to total cost
✓
Lower ramp-up cost
Established capabilities, defined scope & contract
Patient experience & access
✓
Your Epic and Ops
Your team staffs scheduling, onboarding & support
✕
Separate experience
Extra logins/scheduling can add friction
✓
Stays in Epic & MyChart
Connects seamlessly to your existing digital front door and patient access team
Clinical information & continuity
✓
One shared record
Your teams manage inbaskets, results, referrals & escalation
✕
Handoffs across platforms
Orders/results need connected workflows
✓
Built on Epic
Uses Care Everywhere & coordinates handoffs with your team
Clinical operations & scale
✕
Staffing risk stays with you
Recruit, onboard & retain clinicians yourself
~
Vendor staff, you coordinate
Coverage & escalation span separate entities and organizations
✓
Dedicated operating partner
Ovatient runs clinical team & practice operations
Service & technology evolution
✕
Competes for internal bandwidth
New services depend on IT & governance queue
~
Two roadmaps to maintain
Vendor or Epic changes both need integration work; moves away from Epic-first approach
✓
Reusable Epic workflows
Developed, configured locally, reducing your IT lift
IT & operating responsibilities
✕
Full ownership
You run build, config, support & maintenance
~
Ongoing integration burden
Reconciliation & upgrades stay on you
✓
Jointly implemented
Ovatient leads build & maintenance; you support locally
Care model & health-system relationships
~
Care model development is on you
Your team must develop urgent, primary & specialty pathways
~
Depends on vendor scope
Referral & escalation alignment varies
✓
Virtual-first, not virtual-only
Whole-person model coordinated across ALL your services
✓
Strong~
Mixed / trade-off✕
Weak