Telehealth and remote device maker TytoCare is expanding its video capabilities with improved video quality and multi-party calls, as well as allowing clinicians to use any type of tablet for telehealth visits.

The enhanced video options, offered through Amazon’s video conferencing service Amazon Chime, will let multiple members of a care team join in a call, like a primary care provider alongside specialists or interns. Clinicians can also share their screens so patients can view test results with their providers.

"We're excited to announce the expansion of our video capabilities, enabling healthcare providers and payers to further offer their members the clinic-quality telehealth visits they demand," Dedi Gilad, CEO and cofounder of TytoCare, said in a statement.

"Video communication is a key component of any telehealth visit and we are constantly looking for innovative ways to improve our platform. The enhanced video capabilities equip health systems with the most cutting-edge tools to provide the best possible remote care, improving the healthcare experience for all."

WHY IT MATTERS

TytoCare is pitching its enhancements as a way to offer better communication between doctors and patients as well as an improved user experience, which it argues is necessary for broad adoption of telehealth.

Telehealth use exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic as patients stayed home rather than venturing to doctor’s offices or clinics for care. Although telehealth utilization has been generally falling this year, many stakeholders and health systems have continued to invest in the technology, arguing a hybrid model is the future of healthcare delivery. 

In addition to the more traditional video telehealth experience, TytoCare also makes a medical exam kit that helps users conduct physical exams of the heart, skin, ears, throat, abdomen and lungs, and measure blood oxygen levels, heart rate and temperature. Though TytoCare also allows for video-only options, the company said those tools are also easy for patients to use on their own.

“We designed the solution really thinking about, ‘How do we make this as easy as possible for a consumer — a parent, a mother, a father, a grandparent — to use this?’ You do not need to be clinically trained,” Marcos Domiciano, AVP of account management at TytoCare, said on HIMSSCast earlier this month. 

THE LARGER TREND

In August, TytoCare announced a partnership with South Carolina’s Prisma Health, enabling patients to do telehealth exams through Prisma clinicians. 

The virtual care company raised a total of $100 million in a Series D funding round, bringing its total raise to $155 million in March. 

Other big players in the telehealth space include Teladoc, which recently made its primary care offering available for payers; eVisit, which raised $45 million in September; and MeMD, which announced it was to be acquired by Walmart in May.