P2P: Innovating the Road A.H.E.A.D.

If necessity is indeed the mother of invention, then COVID-19 is the austere father punishing our lack of foresight. At the onset of the 2020 pandemic, telehealth appointments between patients and providers saw a 17% baseline increase from the year prior (Bestenny et al, 2022) Born out of the particular needs of rural communities, then escalated by the public health crisis, telehealth has become an increasingly viable resource for patients to meet their health requirements outside of traditional office settings. As a result, upstart communication frameworks are emerging to catalyze innovation into every corner of the medical field. This trend begs the question, how else may the health community utilize telehealth resources, beyond the patient and provider interaction, to better address health outcomes in rural and at-risk communities?

A partnership between the AHEAD team and the UArizona College of Medicine, Dr. Parthasarathy is spearheading a program that seeks to answer that question, while aiming to better equip rural physicians to treat COVID-19 patients.  The Physician-to-Physician warmline (P2P) is a novel platform where physicians can contact an on-call physician and seek advice on how best to approach their unique patient cases using de-identified information. Within 24 hours, critical care specialists will respond with the most up-to-date guidance on how to manage the case. While endeavoring to improve patient outcomes, the anticipated impacts of this warmline include: 

1. Dissemination of Timely Information- As the pandemic rapidly shifts and evolves, so too does the latest guidance on the best medical approaches. Too often physicians must spend valuable time parsing through latest CDC guidance on treating COVID cases from breakthrough infections to long-haul COVID. The P2P warmline will effectively exist as a singular resource for physicians to access and better distill information.
2. Reduction of Physician Burnout- By providing this resource, and cutting down on the additional time spent researching, the P2P line will help to eliminate some of the burdens facing rural physicians and help to reduce the stress that has been escalating as we approach the third year of the pandemic. 
3.  Financial Benefits- With additional resources and support, rural physicians may be able to keep more patients admitted locally, rather than transferring them to specialists in urban areas providing a potential financial benefit to rural hospitals (Mcgrath, 2021).

To learn more about the P2P Warmline, please contact Michelle Moore, mmoore4@arizona.edu

Citations:

Bestsennyy, O., Gilbert, G., Harris, A., & Rost, J. (2021, July 22). Telehealth: A quarter-trillion-dollar post-covid-19 reality? McKinsey & Company. Retrieved February 11, 2022, from https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/telehealth-a-quarter-trillion-dollar-post-covid-19-reality

The National Institutes of Health Office of Disease Prevention. (2021). Improving Rural Health Through Telehealth-Guided Provider-to-Provider Communication — Day 2 (P2P). YouTube. Retrieved February 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9THS9uIM6qg&t=7139s.