What You Should Know:
- Summer Health, a text-based service for parents to get answers to urgent needs from pediatricians, is expanding into primary care.
Improving Access to Medical Professionals
Summer Health’s care teams are expanding their services to benefit thousands of parents across the nation in the following ways:
1. Families will now have unlimited access to dedicated medical practitioners assigned to their accounts, similar to a primary pediatric practice. Each family is connected with a lead pediatrician and a consistent medical team for ongoing care.
2. An accompanying app named CareHub has been introduced, allowing parents to conveniently manage their child’s health in one place. The app includes features such as visit notes, milestone tracking, and treatment plans.
3. Unlimited access to specialists, including sleep coaches, lactation consultants, and nutritionists, is now available to parents seeking specialized care for their children.
Summer Health, established in July 2022, aimed to revolutionize healthcare communication by leveraging SMS. With over 22 million millennial parents in the U.S. alone, the company recognized the preference for text communication over phone calls among this demographic. Moreover, physicians have found that high-quality images or videos from smartphones enable remote diagnosis of various conditions.
The Everyday Care portal offers parents a dedicated team of pediatricians and specialists for continuous care, with 24/7 access to Summer Health’s extensive network of providers. The commitment to responding within 15 minutes or less ensures that a comprehensive understanding of a child’s physical wellness is developed by a team of pediatricians and specialists in lactation, sleep, and nutrition. This expanded range of services not only addresses urgent needs but also fosters deeper connections between parents and their Summer Health care team.
Initially focusing on common urgent ailments such as viral infections, rashes, upset stomachs, ear infections, and pink eye, Summer Health provides virtual care, including an online prescribing service when clinically necessary. While not intended to replace primary care pediatricians, Summer Health adds a layer of convenient care from home. The company’s commitment to responding within 15 minutes or less underscores its dedication to providing timely and accessible healthcare services.
“Because reimbursement rates are higher for video and in-person services, the health care system defaults there,” said Ellen DaSilva, CEO of Summer Health. “But as a mom of three myself, I know that parents sometimes just want a quick gut check or second opinion from a trusted, knowledgeable source.”