Photo Caption: A novel coronavirus, named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China in 2019. The illness caused by this virus has been named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Portland-based Bright.md has helped health systems evaluate and treat tens of thousands of patients with its virtual care delivery platform, SmartExam™.
The platform has allows patients to be clinically managed from their own homes reducing the spread of the virus and giving time back to providers to focus on the patients who need the most care.
Using SmartExam, providers can deliver a diagnosis and treatment in less than two minutes, which means a single clinician can manage more than 200 patients each day. For comparison, in-person and video visits typically require more than 20 minutes of provider time, which means a single doctor has capacity for only 25 to 50 patient encounters each day, even when taking on exceptionally long shifts.
“Overwhelmed health workers on the front lines of the global COVID-19 pandemic are working long hours to treat the growing number of patients who require screening and care for the virus,” said Dr. Ray Costantini, co-founder and CEO of Bright.md. “By enabling at-home online care automation, we are seeing the number of patients accessing our services multiply exponentially each day, which means fewer patients will expose others to the virus and providers have more time to address the most serious cases.”
Bright.md’s SmartExam is also helping systems deliver care to people who have more mainstream medical issues, such as pink eye and bladder infections. “People have real concerns about going to the doctor right now, but non-acute conditions don’t just go away during a pandemic,” said Dr. Costantini. “If we can help healthcare systems keep those patients out of their doctors’ offices by offering them high-quality evidence-based virtual care, their clinicians can attend to the sickest patients. It’s a powerful way to help flatten the curve of COVID-19 impact.”
In addition to its recognition by CB Insights this week, Bright.md also banded together with nearly 40 other health tech companies to form the StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force, a group mobilized to provide government agencies, regulatory boards and healthcare systems with solutions for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the novel coronavirus.
