Setting a new standard in virtual care means thinking beyond isolated, episodic telehealth visits. To meet its full potential, we believe virtual care must be built on the EHR and connected to a patient’s ongoing care journey at their trusted health system.
Working with the MetroHealth System in Cleveland, Ohio, Ovatient connects patients to virtual-first urgent care, primary care and integrated behavioral health that is seamlessly connected to their in-person care at the health system.
We examined data from nearly 50,000 virtual-first encounters across more than 22,000 unique patients over two years. This study demonstrates that virtual-first care, when fully integrated within a health system and built natively on the EHR, can deliver enterprise-scale value across access, continuity, utilization, growth, and longitudinal outcomes.
Key findings include:
- Increased access: 100% of patients were able to schedule a new-patient appointment within 3 days. 15% of patients elected same-day access to virtual primary care and 67% scheduled within 7 days.
- Establishing continuity: 22% of virtual urgent care patients without a primary care provider (PCP) established with a PCP within 90 days.
- Patient keepage: 35% of virtual primary care patients were net new or re-engaged, and 46% followed up with an additional visit in 30 days.
- Safe downstream trajectories: Compared with in-person urgent care, virtual urgent care was associated with 17% lower 72-hour ED use and 20% higher 30-day ambulatory follow-up.
