Telemedicine Challenges Faced by Healthcare Leaders
LifeBridge Health, headquartered in Owings Mills, Maryland, encountered two significant obstacles in their telemedicine journey: operational inefficiency and low patient adoption rates. Dr. Jonathan Thierman, who serves as president and chief executive of ExpressCare and Children’s Urgent Care at LifeBridge Health, had previously established the LifeBridge Health Virtual Health Center. This experience taught him that streamlining telemedicine operations would reduce barriers for patients, making the transition to virtual care more seamless.
Despite this knowledge, the urgent care division struggled with minimal telemedicine utilization and excessively long wait times. The health system also faced technical hurdles while evaluating various telehealth platforms. After thorough assessment, they determined that the most valuable features were those that seamlessly integrated with existing patient registration systems and provider workflows.
Strategic Virtual Care Implementation
“We operate a highly efficient network of nearly 35 urgent care centers across Maryland,” Dr. Thierman explained. “One key to our efficiency is our ‘cut-and-paste’ approach – ensuring every detail, from supplies and facility layout to workflow and staffing, is as consistent as possible across all locations.”
This standardization strategy allowed LifeBridge Health to identify inefficiencies once and implement solutions across their entire system. It also provided flexibility in staffing, enabling healthcare providers and medical assistants to move between different centers without disruption to patient care.
Through this methodical approach, staff identified a critical inefficiency: sporadic telemedicine visits inserted into providers’ in-person workflows. These virtual appointments disrupted standard processes, creating bottlenecks and unpredictable wait times for telemedicine patients.
Creating a Dedicated Virtual Care Center
Virtual patients were frequently left waiting in their “virtual room” while providers focused on in-person care, unintentionally deprioritizing them because they were “out of sight, out of mind.”
“To address this, we created a standalone ‘telemedicine site’ that functions like an independent center within our network,” Dr. Thierman shared. “This new center operates with its own P&L, dedicated staff and schedules. Registration, billing and other processes mirror those of our physical centers to maintain consistency.”
By consolidating telemedicine workflows into a single, specialized center, LifeBridge Health aimed to eliminate inefficiencies, improve patient throughput, and ultimately increase telemedicine adoption among their patient population.
Implementation Process and Technology Selection
For the new telemedicine site, LifeBridge Health followed their established process for launching new locations. They hired dedicated staff and providers while establishing business operations, workflow patterns, and front- and back-end processes that closely matched their physical locations.
“On our website and scheduling platforms, we clearly designated ‘Telemedicine’ as a new location, making it easy for patients to select a virtual visit instead of an in-person appointment,” Dr. Thierman explained. “For simplicity and integration, we opted to use the basic built-in telemedicine platform within our EHR, Experity.”
The health system briefly collaborated with the platform’s parent company to test additional features and enhancements. However, they ultimately determined that a streamlined approach minimized potential complications while maintaining an integrated telemedicine platform that leveraged familiar EHR functionality for both patients and staff.
Impressive Performance Metrics and ROI
Almost immediately after launching the virtual center, telemedicine patient volume doubled. Within a few months, it had tripled. Simultaneously, LifeBridge Health significantly reduced wait times and improved patient throughput, creating a highly efficient system with exceptional patient satisfaction scores.
“Our new virtual urgent care center offered extremely short wait times and allowed providers to see nearly twice as many patients as they would in the same period for in-person visits,” Dr. Thierman noted.
When measuring patient satisfaction—a routine practice across all locations—the telemedicine center’s scores were exceptional. Since implementation, they have continued to grow patient volumes while maintaining high throughput and patient satisfaction metrics.
Strategic Vision for Virtual Care Growth
“We recognized the future of urgent care would include virtual encounters and telemedicine visits, whether we provided the service or someone else did,” Dr. Thierman emphasized. “Instead of worrying about cannibalizing our own business, we focused on delivering the best telemedicine experience possible.”
While revenue per telemedicine visit was lower than for in-person appointments, the reduced overhead and infrastructure costs—combined with the ability to serve more patients per hour—resulted in strong profit margins for this business line after transitioning to the dedicated virtual center model.
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