American Well: e-House Calls by the Hawaiian Doctor

Today Hawaii Medical Service Association along with American Well roll out American Well's technology that redesigns the house call -- call it "e-House Call." More about the joint effort and how to log in can be found at HMSA's Online Care For Consumers.

American Well's technology allows live, face-to-face consultations between physicians and patients. The technology matches up the patient with the physician. Hawaii hope that the project will provide convenient, affordable and better access to health care in a state (not unlike West Virginia) that has remote areas/islands.

I plan to invite American Well to West Virginia to see whether we might roll out a similar effort in conjunction with the West Virginia Health Information Network or as a part of the innovation community under the Medicaid Transformation Grant program that I am working on through the West Virginia Health Improvement Institute.

More background information in the AP News article, "The Hawaii doctor is in - online." Also, David Harlow over at HealthBlawg recently examined whether American Well might be the disruptive innovation to unseat retail based health clinics.

Tip to @jenmccabegorman.