Transcription:
Telehealth Video Visit

Introduction: Well Within Reach is brought to you by Riverside My Chart, your simple secure and confidential online health connection. With just a click Riverside My Chart lets you stay well connected to the same information your doctor sees. You can request prescription refills, pay your bills, schedule your next appointment, and more. Manage your care from your laptop, tablet or phone, whether for yourself, your kids or the grandparents, My Chart makes your busy life just a little easier. Learn more and enroll today at Riversidemychart.org. Just another way to stay well Connected from Riverside Healthcare. Riverside Healthcare puts the health and wellness information you need, Well Within Reach

Katie Salwei: Thank you, for tuning into the Well Within Reach podcast. I'm your host Katie Salwei. And joining me today is Internal Medicine Physician Dr. Nicholas Guastelli. Dr. Guastelli is a Kankakee native and he completed his residency at Riverside and began practicing in 2017. Thank you so much for joining me today, Dr. Guastelli.

Dr. Guastelli: Thanks for having me.

Host: So I gave a little bit of an introduction, but would you mind telling our audience a little bit about yourself and why you chose to pursue medicine?

Dr. Guastelli: Sure. Yeah. So like you mentioned, I was born and raised in Kankakee. I went to undergrad at University of Illinois down in Champaign Urbana. And then after that did my medical school at Midwestern University in Downers Grove and then came back to Kankakee to do my residency at Riverside here. So, you know, as far as why I chose medicine, I've kind of been attracted to the healthcare industry for as long as I can remember really. My dad is a nurse and I've kind of just had a natural affinity towards, towards healthcare, you know, just growing up around him.

Host: Well, glad to have you back in the area and have you practicing here at Riverside. And so today we're going to be talking about Riverside's telehealth video visits, which is a newer thing that we, we've started with this COVID pandemic kind of stuff coming on. So let's start with, can you tell me what is a video visit?

Dr. Guastelli: Yeah. So it's basically, you know, just what it sounds like. It's a face to face visit between a patient and their provider, be that a doctor, nurse practitioner or specialist, over either a telephone with a camera on it or a laptop. So it's kind of, you know, a lot of people have used FaceTime or Skype, things like that. It's very comparable.

Host: Okay. Yeah. So one of those things that you definitely need to have is your audio visual with your computer a phone and stuff like that. So how exactly does a video visit work? Like how can my provider treat me over a video?

Dr. Guastelli: Yeah. So there's a lot of different ways your provider can treat you over a video visit. You know, the physical exam is an important part of diagnosing various conditions. But equally important is, you know, the history, just the history of present illness is what we call it basically where the patient describes their symptoms, what's going on, what led up to these symptoms and you know, just gives as much information as they can to their provider who can take that information and kind of try and figure out what's going on and you know, take the necessary actions, whether it's something that's chronic like hypertension, diabetes, COPD, or something more acute like an upper respiratory infection or the flu or something like that.

Host: Okay. So it sounds a lot like most of this isn't a lot different than really being in the office. You're the really a big difference is you're just not there in person to person. So what does it look like as far as checking in your patient and kind of getting those, I know you can't do like blood pressure and stuff like that. How does your staff work through those kinds of things?

Dr. Guastelli: So it's very similar to being checked into a regular physician visit. You know, once we get connected on the video chat, the rooming staff comes in and goes over any history that may need to be updated, regards to family history, surgical history, allergies and any complaints that the patient might have, you know, and gets it all documented. Yeah. As far as vitals, we, you know, we can't take blood pressures, temperatures obviously over a telehealth visit. But a lot of times we're kind of relying on the patient to do that, especially if we're seeing them for something relating to that, you know, if they think they might have a fever, we're asking them to take your temperature at home, you know, let us know what it is. And we document it on the chart just like we would if we took it in the office.

Host: Okay. So you mentioned earlier it can be your primary care provider, your specialist. So what kind of providers can complete these video visits? Is there a limitation to what type of specialist or primary care visit we could do over video visit?

Dr. Guastelli: There's all sorts of providers who are completing these visits, you know. The primary care physicians definitely are all implementing this into their practices as well as the various immediate care locations. And then the specialist, you know, urology, cardiology and rheumatology is doing a lot of this. A lot of the surgical subspecialties as well. You know, trying to evaluate patients who may or may not need surgical intervention, but you know, through kind of what I mentioned before, the history, seeing if they can kind of figure that out.

Host: Well, it's really nice that we can offer that because I know we don't want our healthcare to stop. That's very important to keep up on your routine visits or your follow-ups and stuff like that. So this is a very important thing. I'm glad that we have it.

Dr. Guastelli: Definitely.

Host: So it looks like you don't need to be an established Riverside patient in order to complete a video visit. Can you kind of go over what that kind of means?

Dr. Guastelli: Yeah. So a lot of the patients that we are treating over telehealth are established, but we've had quite a few new patients establish care with us as well over these telehealth visits.

Host: Well that's a nice thing. Also, it's a way to continue to build our practices as well in addition to allowing to see those patients we already do have. So is there a special, I think we mentioned this a little bit, but the special technology in addition to your computer that you might need to complete these video visits?

Dr. Guastelli: Oh really, you just need something with a camera and a microphone on it. We've found that using cell phones, smartphones has been the smoothest way for most people so far. But you can also use a laptop with a webcam and a microphone on it. We're using a couple of different platforms. Go to meeting is one of them that a lot of people are probably familiar with. And then the other platform is called Doximity and that one is more over mobile phones and it's very simple. The patient basically gets a text message from our office. You click on a link, there's a couple more buttons you got to click to, you know, allow access your microphone and things like that. And then you're connected, you know, within a matter of you know, 30 seconds or less.

Host: Great. Great. That's really nice to make it easy as well for our patients. So how were these video visits scheduled? How can somebody make an appointment?

Dr. Guastelli: Yeah, the same way you'd schedule a visit with your provider, you know, outside of these crazy circumstances that we're all kind of dealing with. If you just call the provider's office, you know, they'll be able to get you set up.

Host: Okay. So, and if you, we mentioned earlier, if you do not have a Riverside provider and you are looking to see one of our providers over video visit you can certainly call our Riverside referral line, which is 855-404-docs, three, six, two, seven. And they'll get you set up with whatever physician, NP that you're kind of looking to see. And you can also learn more about all of this stuff on our website at riversidehealthcare.org. We've got some frequently asked questions and how to set up, go to meeting and get Doximity on there as Dr. Guastelli mentioned. So is there anything else Dr. Guastelli, that we may have missed or that you wanted to mention about video visits?

Dr. Guastelli: No, I just think that, you know, the world is going through a crazy, unprecedented time right now and a lot of people are being very cautious and justly so as they should. And we're recommending obviously people stay home, especially elderly high risk patients with a lot of you know, with underlying medical problems. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to lose all contact with your healthcare providers. And that, you know, we shouldn't be staying on top of these chronic conditions. So no, I would just encourage everyone to try it out. It's easy. It's an easy process and it's a really great service that Riverside's offering right now.

Host: Okay. Well, that's great information and great to know, but definitely like Dr. Guastelli you said, if you are in need of seeing a doctor and just need to even asking questions, any of that kind of stuff, definitely try it out. You're still going to get the same great care that you would get if you're in person. You're just going to be over a mobile device or on your computer. And so again, if you are looking to schedule, feel free to call your provider's office. You can either do a specialty primary care or through immediate care this way. You can also call our Riverside referral line if you don't have a Riverside doctor. And that's 855-404- four-docs or you can go to our website to learn a little bit more. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Guastelli.

Dr. Guastelli: Thanks for having me.