Scaling a pandemic-era RPM program into a virtual continuum of care

Four years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, health systems are working to integrate virtual care capabilities more effectively into traditional healthcare delivery. Organizations are taking the telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) services rapidly implemented to meet pandemic-era needs and growing them into more thoughtfully designed, comprehensive virtual care models. Georgia-based Wellstar MCG Health, formerly Augusta University Health, is one example of an organization that has achieved this, growing an early discharge program for COVID-19 patients into a wide-ranging virtual continuum of care. According to Lauren Hopkins, MPH, assistant vice president of virtual care and community engagement at Wellstar MCG Health, the early discharge program began, like many others did, to mitigate capacity problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.