Hometown Heroes for Primary Care
With healthcare inequality lingered heavily in the air, Telehealth platform Med&Beyond partners with nonprofits to...
Hometown Heroes for Primary Care
With the rise ofCOVID-19 and its effects on the world economy, millions of people are at risk of not getting the healthcare they require. Even without taking into account the pandemic, the National Association of Community Health Centers[1] estimates that 62 million Americans either don't have access or don't have reliable access to primary care. This means that 1 in 5 Americans don't get the care they deserve.
Inequality in healthcare has always been an issue experienced across countries, but the USA is definitely the leader. While 38% of Americans making less than $22,500 a year have reported to be in poor or fair health during 2011 and 2013, 12% of those making $47,700 reported these conditions[2].
Of 32 rich and middle-income countries in a Washington Poststudy, only Chile and Portugal had a wider gulf than the United states' health inequality gap.
Med&Beyond understands the injustice experienced in the world of medicine, not only in the US but everywhere, and has decided to stand up and help by giving people the healthcare they deserve.
In an effort to realize this goal of providing high-quality healthcare to those in need, Med&Beyond joined an effort with the social nonprofit organization that runs the refugee clinic for 40,000 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees in Israel. ThroughoutCOVID-19, the medical services were closed. Alongside this, people outside ofthe center could not receive any treatment regularly and needed to travel very far to see a doctor or simply get a prescription refilled.
Our system allowed them –
1. To continue operating the specialized clinic (hypertension, gynecology, psychiatrist, etc.).
2. To outreach patients that couldn't consume the services or even didn't know about them.
3. To recruit volunteer doctors from all over Israel and not only from the center – increasing the number of treatments.
4. Reduce the cost of the facilities but still give more services.
Combining these two circumstances meant fewer staff on call and greater difficulty reaching patients when needed.
Seeing the situation unfold, Med&Beyond understood how their services could be of use in bridging this issue . Therefore, reaching out and offering our services to provide best possible care to these refugees was an ideal way to getting involved and giving back to the people in need.
In cooperation with the manager of the refugee clinic, Med&Beyond gave them access to the EMR and clinic scheduler they created to serve the population better and reach them more seamlessly.
Furthermore, we translated our bot into Triginiya to improve the patient's overall experience.
Combining the use of Med&Beyond's Triginiya AI bot with a cutting-edge EMR system enabled … to offer acute and primary care services to patients who could not reach the physical clinic in Tel Aviv.
These efforts were all worthwhile as they allowed patients to get the specialist care they needed while the clinic was closed due to COVID-19. The support from the Telehealth platform was proven to be specifically vital as there were emerging cases of patients having acute psychosis and needing immediate care and hospitalization.
Med&Beyond has had the privilege of utilizing this difficult time due to the pandemic to offer services that were specifically developed in order to help those in need. Providing primary healthcare to anyone, anywhere, unable to receive the care they deserve due to economic equality or other situational injustice is what our Telehealth platform sets out to resolve.
[1] National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc. | Official web site of the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration (hrsa.gov)
[2]Health Affairs: Leading Publication Of Health Policy Research & Insight
