eConsults: An Essential Piece of Telehealth for Chronic Care Management

To avoid these negative outcomes and to preserve specialist availability and critical health care resources, health care organizations must find ways to provide safe access to primary care for patients with chronic conditions. One potential avenue for providing this care is through the use of eConsults and other forms of telehealth for chronic care management.

With eConsults, PCPs can provide virtual access to specialist-guided care, replacing the need for face-to-face specialist visits over 70% of the time, and triaging cases to ensure only the highest-acuity patients are referred for in-person appointments. This means patients with chronic conditions can continue to receive care in a safe environment, improving patient outcomes and mitigating a backlog of more urgent care that becomes necessary when untreated conditions worsen.