The South Carolina Telehealth Alliance is a collaboration of many healthcare organizations working to expand Telehealth across the state.

Since 2014, the SCTA has organized efforts through a statewide strategic plan which allows SCTA members across the state to work collaboratively to expand Telehealth programs, and to align Telehealth, education, broadband, and internet infrastructure and advocacy and awareness efforts.

In 2021, the SCTA launched a new strategic plan format focused on grouping Telehealth services by the value they bring to the state.

In this new series, we will dive into each strategic bucket a little deeper and take a look at the impact these Telehealth programs have brought to South Carolina.

These services are designed to engage patients through their own devices to optimize utilization and maximize healthcare engagement.

The services should meet both an immediate need of the patients and enable patient engagement to enhance population health and preventive care.

>> Convenient care is designed to respond to the idea that a lot of Telehealth services are developed just to be super accessible, and not take a lot of time out of people's day to get the health care that they need.

And so virtual urgent care is the sort of champion service within that, but we call it convenient care because we want to keep focused on the idea that convenience is important.

It's not just a commodity, it's not just a business proposition for a health system or one of the other, but making sure that you get your basic health care needs met as simple and easy as possible is really the first step to engaging in health care.

>> To be honest, I think virtual urgent care was something that was really just catching on across the state prior to the pandemic, and I think for a lot of us, it was really about right-sizing care and getting people low acuity care in the most convenient way and overcoming barriers to care for a lot of populations.

We had a lot of questions about whether this kind of cultural shift of accessing providers in a synchronous or asynchronous way through these platforms, would be something that the the public would really want to engage in, that patients would really want to engage in.

And then the pandemic happened and we, of course, saw cultural shifts across the board.

What we realized really early on was that it was an incredible tool to address the Public Health crisis that we were slapped in the face with.

And it was an incredible tool to not only get people care conveniently and in their homes and keep people safe and out of emergency rooms and doctors offices when they didn't need to be there, but it was also a great public health tool for screening and guiding people to covid testing and eventually to other forms of care for the covid virus.

>> One of the things that the pandemic did for us is it allowed our patients and our residents to truly receive care back in the home setting and that made it much more convenient for the patient.

So, instead of going into a waiting room or an emergency room, where you're around sick folks, or maybe you're a little afraid of going out into an open environment around other folks, convenient care is very important, and I think that what the pandemic did is it highlighted our service bucket of making it more convenient for the patient, bringing the care to them when they can't always get to the health care provider for the care that they need.

♪ >> I have a cold.

It wasn't horrible, but it was getting there.

For me, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to going to the doctor.

My wife's always pushing me out to go to the doctor, so she gave me a call and I was like, "Hey, download this app."

>> Patients typically will access Telehealth if they have a hard time getting in to see a doctor, they're busy at work, they have kids, they have life and sometimes it's hard to see a doctor.

And so the cool thing about Telehealth, is it brings health care on their terms.

>> When you're feeling horrible, because, you know, when you're under the weather, is you don't really want to go out.

So it was very convenient for me, because I really was feeling kind of down and didn't really feel like going outside or getting myself together to leave the house.

>> So when I first got into Telehealth I thought, This is going to be hard.

I can't touch the patient, I can't interact with them in the same way.

Surprisingly, though, it is not difficult, it's actually easier in some ways.

Number one, the patient's comfortable, they're in their own environment.

It breaks down some of those barriers that you have in the hospital when they're very anxious, they're stressed.

They're in their comfortable home or they're in their car often, contacting me.

So that's easy, and also the disease processes that we see are really usually minor emergencies, minor illnesses, and they lend themselves very well to the high-definition camera, being able to get in there and see a rash, see the back of a patient's throat.

So a lot of the physical exam elements that I was a little bit concerned as a clinician, How am I going to do this through Telehealth?

It's really easy to do.

>> He actually just talked to me like he normally would.

It felt convenient because I didn't have to leave my home, but it was pretty smooth.

>> So Healthcare is very, very important, but it's not the thing.

The thing is life, living your life, enjoying your life.