Sudden Future: The Rise of Telemedicine During COVID-19

When Telemedicine Began in the US

Psychiatry Sets a Standard for Future Telemedicine Use

Streamlined EHR Could Help Drive Better Patient Care

Telemedicine Offers New Hope For Burnout Reduction During COVID-19

Survey Shows Practitioners Leaning Toward Telemedicine Future

COVID-19 Proved Doctors are Ready for Telemedicine

Telemedicine Tools Emerging in Medical School

Click to read our highlighted stories:A 20-year dream becomes a necessity in the days after COVID-19 began to spike. Who helped to bring it practice, and what does it look like now?The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated plans to make changes within their electronic health record system for a trio of Saint Louis University doctors.Many tools are becoming available to psychiatrists who need to strengthen their reach of care outside the office.A trio of clinicians discuss what needs to occur for telemedicine to be seen as a positive in reducing burnout during the ongoing pandemic.More than three-fourths of online respondents expressed concern about providing in-person patient safety after COVID-19. Another 35% want to use telemedicine in their practice now.The surprise surrounding healthcare’s embrace of technology in past months does not consider how willing physicians are to find and use the right tools.Artificial intelligence has the potential to enhance many aspects of healthcare in the US, including patient and clinical outcomes, while reducing costs.

When the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic began to spread rapidly in the US in early March, nearly every institution across the country was given a Darwinian ultimatum: adapt, or get left behind.

The medical field was no different.

For many medical professionals, telemedicine was widely discussed theory of practice; its actual use was a more limited, tame version to what they could envision it being.

COVID-19 changed that.

The pandemic forced people home and cancelled traditional medical appointments, imposing new standards of living on everyone—not just those who became infected. But those standard harbored opportunity to implement new technologies and strategies as the field embarks on a new frontier of healthcare.

In our seven-part feature series, “Sudden Future: The Rise of Telemedicine During COVID-19,” the editors of HCPLive® highlight some of the success stories and struggles in specialties across healthcare as they weave their way through learning new techniques on the fly to adapt to an ever-changing pandemic landscape.

In the series, we tackle how telemedicine is being used on the frontline, why psychiatry had a head start in implementing supplemental digital programs to help patients, and how electronic health records can be tweaked to streamline services and improve patient care.

We report on a 1300-practitioner survey conducted on the past, present, and future of telemedicine, and how telehealth could help with the never-ending burnout problems.

What did we learn?

It’s complicated, but the landscape of telemedicine could continue change, to the betterment of physicians and patients alike.

“Candidly, it just went through the roof as far as the demand, because people still wanted to keep their appointments with their providers, but they didn’t want to come into the hospital or clinic and be in a waiting room and potentially be exposed to other people with COVID,” Jim Sheets, MBA, Vice President of outreach services at Intermountain Healthcare said of the new demand for telehealth services.

Did COVID-19 accelerate the inevitable, or will we go back to traditional healthcare once the threat of the virus has passed?

Find out in “Sudden Future: The Rise of Telemedicine During COVID-19.”