CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic Expands Telehealth Services

TYLER — On Sunday, Christus telehealth services began expanding the offering of secure, HIPAA-compliant video visits with the more than 200 primary care providers throughout CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic locations across all of Northeast Texas served by CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances, CHRISTUS Good Shepherd and CHRISTUS St. Michael Health Systems. These video visits are available for Apple iPhone and Android users. The goal is to prevent overcrowding in clinics while preventing exposures, reducing risk and facilitating high-quality care

If a patient begins a video visit and their primary care provider determines the need for an in-person evaluation, that will be arranged. There is no additional cost associated with a telemedicine visit. “A video visit is a visit with your clinician through your computer or smart phone with video capability and is appropriate for evaluations of most any symptom you have. A telephone visit is used for those with no video capability and is just a telephone call only. Either a video or telephone visit can be used for simple things such as coughs and colds, or for more complicated things such as helping manage diabetes or heart disease,” said Andria Cardinalli-Stein, M.D., FACP, Ambulatory Chief Quality Officer, CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic in Northeast Texas. “Primary care video visits are available now, and specialty visits will be available this week, including OB-GYN, Cardiology, Pulmonology, Oncology – just to name a few.”

The other benefit is to alleviate stress on call centers and the CHRISTUS COVID Hotline by offering a dedicated tool to help patients self-screen for the virus and get direction on what steps they need to take next.

A chatbot is an artificial intelligence (AI) unit programmed into a website to perform basic, automated duties, such as replying to customers on a retail site or engaging with users on social media messenger services. Patients will interact with our chatbot through a text-chat interface on the website,” said Dr. Smith. “The COVID Health Chatbot is available 24/7 and will provide a screening function for patients who are ill with fever or cough or shortness of breath and have had travel to any region that has known community spread of coronavirus or if you have any of the above symptoms and exposure to a person with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.”

“As health care systems adapt their procedures and we all make changes to our daily lives and routines, it is important that CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic does everything we can to ensure patients have access to the medical care they need,” said Christy Bush, Chief Operating Officer, CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic. “We are poised to do whatever it takes to continue bringing you the same seamless, compassionate care you have come to expect, while also doing everything we can to minimize the spread of infectious disease throughout the communities we serve.”