The last phase for the ORCHID Integrated Virtual Healthcare Project went live on March 15, 2022, with video visits increasing from 38 ambulatory clinics to over 230 across Health Services for primary and specialty care appointments. Patients with an LA Health Portal account can join their visit from within their portal or receive an SMS/text or email with a link to join the visit.

The 38 Phase I sites went live on November 30, 2021, with mixed results. Technology and patient readiness presented the biggest challenges during the first two weeks. The project team worked with the IT technical teams to finetune the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platform to optimize the video experience for our patients and clinicians.

The project team also discovered that not all patients were ideal candidates for a video visit, either because they encountered the “digital divide” and experienced technical issues with their personal devices or needed guidance about how to optimize their video visit experience by using Wi-Fi and being in a well-lit, quiet location.

To help prepare our patients for a successful video visit, the project team took advantage of a program offered through UC Berkeley that enlists medical students as Telehealth Ambassadors to contact patients ahead of their first video visit and walk them through a “tech check”. Patient feedback has been positive. Since March 1, over 80 patients have been contacted.

For a detailed look at the ORCHID Integrated Video Visit environment from the patient perspective, you can watch this video available in English and Spanish.  There is also a video from the provider’s perspective.