Health system executives have long recognized that virtual care is no longer a stopgap—it’s a strategic imperative. But as financial pressures intensify and reimbursement models remain uncertain, virtual care must do more than expand access. It needs to reduce costs, improve resource utilization, and offer the flexibility to adapt across geographies, departments, and clinical roles.
The real opportunity ahead isn’t in delivering more virtual visits—it’s in building infrastructure to support true, many-to-many, team-based care at enterprise scale.
That’s why leading systems are moving beyond fragmented deployments toward a unified care architecture—one that enables remote, on-site, and hybrid providers to collaborate seamlessly across hospitals and service lines. These models reduce boots-on-the-ground dependency, extend the reach of in-demand specialists, and allow systems to staff more strategically—without sacrificing speed or quality.
And when built the right way, they don’t just scale—they perform. In some systems, remote consults are now matching—or even surpassing—in-person care when it comes to speed, efficiency, and clinical outcomes.
It’s Time to Move Past the Tactical
While the majority of health systems have implemented some form of virtual care—TelePsychiatry in the ED, TeleHospitalist programs, virtual specialty consults—most deployments remain reactive, designed to solve immediate gaps in staffing or access. They rarely scale systemwide. One-off implementations often live outside core workflows, requiring separate platforms, duplicative documentation, or manual coordination. They add value, but they also add friction.
Scalable team-based care requires a different approach. It demands that virtual care be treated not as a set of digital tools, but as a layer of infrastructure—tightly integrated with EHRs, consult workflows, and enterprise operations.
This transformation doesn’t start with technology. It starts with an architectural mindset: how do we want care to flow across our system? What infrastructure do we need to make it fluid?
What Scalable, Team-Based Care Looks Like
In a scalable model, clinicians are no longer anchored to a single facility. Instead, they operate as part of a distributed care network, supporting patients across sites and service lines with shared access to real-time data, streamlined workflows, and embedded collaboration tools.
In practice, this often means replacing traditional staffing ratios with flexible coverage models. A stroke neurologist might support ten hospitals from a single interface. APPs can handle initial consults and escalate based on acuity. In-house physicians and virtual providers operate as one team, supported by automated routing, bi-directional documentation, and integrated handoffs.
These systems work not because they reduce headcount—but because they reduce inefficiency. The right provider can step into any case at any site, with full clinical context, and no administrative drag.
The Infrastructure Behind the Model
Scaling team-based virtual care requires more than adding telehealth tools—it demands a foundational technology stack built for flexibility, coordination, and speed. As highlighted in our recent white paper, effective systems rely on four key pillars:
- Interoperability through bi-directional EHR integration
Providers must be able to access patient data, document notes, and place orders within a single workflow. - Rules-based automation
Intelligent automation streamlines consult routing, provider assignment, documentation, and billing. This reduces manual handoffs, cuts delays, and ensures consistency across care teams. - Advanced analytics
System-level insights power better decisions. Health systems use real-time data to manage provider workloads, monitor consult throughput, and optimize staffing across departments and regions. - Embedded AI tools
AI-enhanced workflows—like automated chart summarization, triage prioritization, and ambient documentation—help providers work faster and reduce admin time.
These four pillars turn virtual care from a patchwork solution into a strategic asset—and make scalable, high-performance coverage possible.
A Real-World Example
Consider a multi-state health system working to expand specialty coverage across a dozen hospitals using six different EHRs. Without centralized workflows, scaling was inefficient—remote providers logged into multiple systems, consults were delayed, and documentation was duplicative.
By implementing a virtual care platform that integrated data from multiple EHRs, the system unified its workflows. One interface allowed specialists to cover all hospitals, with notes and orders automatically synced into each respective EHR. What began as an effort to improve access became a model for enterprise-wide collaboration, now supporting seven specialties and 25+ programs with one consistent, scalable solution.
Turning Workforce Strategy Into Coverage Architecture
This shift has direct implications for labor models. Instead of filling static FTE roles, health systems can deploy flexible coverage architectures—using centralized specialists, bunkered virtual teams, or monetized networks to extend their footprint.
For example, a hub-and-spoke model might route neurology consults from a flagship hospital to multiple rural affiliates. Alternatively, virtualists might support overnight admissions across regions, smoothing load imbalances and reducing staffing waste. In every case, the goal is not just coverage—but optimized provider utilization: matching supply with demand at speed and scale.
And these aren’t future-state hypotheticals. Health systems are already implementing these models today, with measurable improvements in consult turnaround, transfer rates, throughput, and clinician retention.
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Fragmented Virtual Care
Despite the clear benefits, most programs don’t scale. Often, it’s because they treat virtual care as a series of service-line projects rather than an enterprise transformation. They deploy platforms without a unifying strategy or optimize local workflows without aligning systemwide governance. The result is complexity, fragmentation, and underperformance.
Avoiding this trap requires executive-level alignment and infrastructure that can scale. That means one platform—not many. Shared metrics. A single source of truth for consult efficiency and workforce performance.
When built the right way, remote coverage becomes more than a staffing workaround—it becomes the backbone of a more efficient, resilient care model. Health systems that invest in unified workflows, intelligent automation, and team-based virtual care will be positioned to expand access, improve margins, and deliver better experiences for both patients and providers.
Emerging Data Highlights our Solution
A new KLAS Emerging Company Spotlight—based on direct feedback from health system leaders—highlights how AmplifyMD’s virtual care platform enables cost-efficient, integrated, efficient care delivery across specialties and care settings at scale.
At a time when every resource matters, scalable virtual care offers a rare opportunity: to do more, with less, and deliver better care in the process—an outcome health systems are already achieving with the right technology partners in place.
