Telehealth Sees Increased Adoption After COVID

In early 2020, as the COVID pandemic hit the world out of left field, healthcare systems across the globe had to reinvent themselves. While there were tremendous demands placed on healthcare providers, many had to innovate and literally move to telehealth overnight.

Two years later, as the COVID pandemic is waning across most countries, it has had a lasting impact on how healthcare is delivered. One such impact is an increased adoption of telemedicine and telehealth.

Is The Trend Of Telehealth Here To Stay?

The numbers tell us the story.

● In February 2021, a Mckinsey study reported that outpatient clinic patients’ use of telehealth increased by 78 times at the start of the pandemic. One year later, as more and more healthcare systems opened up and were available offline, this number still stayed 38 times more than the pre-pandemic levels. [1]

● FAIR Health reported similar data. National claim lines using telehealth stood at a miniscule 0.24% in January 2020. That number peaked at 13% in April 2020 before stabilising at 4.9% in December 2021, their latest data. [2] [3] [4]

● Experts are forecasting that telemedicine will increase at 18% annually to become a $186 billion industry in the coming years [5]

Two years ago, these figures might have seemed out of the realm of possibility, even to the biggest supporters of telehealth. But the world has truly changed post the COVID pandemic and among other things, telehealth is definitely here to stay.

Academia has been harping on the benefits of telehealth for a long time. But the COVID pandemic gave an opportunity to healthcare services around the world to test their telemedicine systems at a scale never seen before. Recent surveys show that 63% of the people who were able to access telehealth during the outbreak are ready to expand their use over the next several years.

What Prompted This Change?

Every change has some drivers. We found that the increase in the adoption of telehealth was both supply and demand led, with the regulatory system playing the role of an enabler.

Increased Patient Willingness

A global pandemic meant that there was an unprecedented demand for healthcare services. But because of COVID lockdowns, many patients were forced to meet their doctors online and access telehealth for the first time. Many of them came out surprisingly happy.

Telehealth was especially useful for helping seniors and reaching far flung rural areas.

A Mckinsey survey of people working from home suggests that 40% of respondents will continue to keep using telehealth options despite 72% of them having already joined back work.

Mental health services saw a bigger boost with telehealth. According to Dr. Ashley Batastini, from the DoCEPR at the University of Memphis, telemedicine proved its worth by giving equally good outcomes. In fact, almost two out of three claim lines for telehealth are for mental health services.

Provider Willingness

Many healthcare providers were initially reluctant to adopt telemedicine. Especially for services that have traditionally been considered very touch-based. Many of them had questions like, How can I see my patient’s tongue if their internet is not good? How do I check a fever online?

But as the pandemic hit, and with limited to no means to physically meet patients, providers quickly adapted and learned ways and techniques to make accurate assessments despite barriers and challenges.

But what began as compulsion has today turned into good practice. As Mary Zelazny, CEO of Finger Lakes Community Health put it: it’s all about managing the change, getting people to do the same things in a different way.

According to her, telemedicine has improved the efficiency of her center and saved on costs - two things that are music to the ears of any CEO.

Regulatory Environment For Access And Reimbursement

As the need and adoption of telehealth soared, the government recognized its role and played it to perfection. In March 2020 the government expanded telehealth benefits for medicare beneficiaries.

As mentioned previously, close to five percent of all claims submitted today are related to telehealth.

Today, most states continue to enforce these “temporary” policies with an aim to make them permanent. At the time of this writing, more than 1,000 bills are being considered by state legislatures, with the aim of extending the coverage or enabling provision of telehealth services by insurance companies.

Foreseeable Challenges

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. But there still remain challenges in widespread and grassroot adoption of telemedicine. The biggest questions that proponents of telehealth have to answer are:

● Patient confidentiality and data privacy as more and more personal data is shared over networks that might not be the most secure.

● Age, race, income and region based gaps in internet and mobile phone access.

● Regulatory environment - willingness of the administration to continue supporting telehealth.

● The ethics and morality of healthcare provider compensation - should doctors be paid the same for telehealth appointments as compared to meeting their patients in-person?

Hospitals’ Role In Meeting Telehealth Challenges

Hospitals across the globe have a significant role to play in meeting telehealth challenges. A dearth of healthcare practitioners, a growing demand for chronic care management, altering consumer expectations, and rising healthcare costs are leading to increased adoption of telehealth. Live video visits jumped from 7% to 34% among those questioned, while live phone visits went from 48% to 64% and correspondence visits rose from 28% to 53%.

First, hospitals should invest in training their staff in the use of telehealth. Technology is an enabler. It would go only as far as those who are using it and know how to get the most out of it. Trained staff can handle patient queries well and instill confidence in them to use telehealth wherever possible.

Another challenge for physicians is that of scheduling which might make it difficult to select the best appropriate visit modalities, which is typically constrained by the hospital day’s time limits. Hospitals can overcome this by researching minimalistic telemedicine systems, dependable evidence-driven innovation, and increased coordination insights, which can all help to increase the adoption of telemedicine.

An evidence-driven approach makes hospitals not only smart but also intelligent and thorough in evaluating the right telehealth technology, which improves the chances of successful diffusion and enhance overall patient experience. A 435-bed hospital, CaroMont Regional Medical Centre carefully evaluated their telehealth technology purchases to reduce length of stay for psychiatric patients by approximately 70%, reduce ER overflow hours from 1,700 to 148, and shrink transfer rates as well.

Next thing that hospitals can do to meet telehealth challenges is making it immediate. People are used to instant action and immediate gratification in the virtual world. Extending this to telehealth can improve adoption. If the end-users can be provided immediate access to healthcare rather than wait for an appointment as it happens in the offline world, telehealth will see increased adoption.

Finally, if hospitals can adopt technology and staffing processes to reduce the cost of healthcare delivery via telehealth, it will lead to an increased adoption. Telehealth can deliver significant cost savings for hospitals. If these cost benefits can be passed to the end user, telehealth will see quicker and wider adoption.

What Does The Future Hold For Telehealth?

It is clear today that the trend of increasing adoption of Telehealth is here to stay. However, the shape and form it takes will be determined by the way things develop from now.

It is quite likely that we will see a hybrid healthcare model in the future where telehealth will play an increasingly important part along with in-clinic consultations in delivering healthcare.

The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet!

[1]: Telehealth: A quarter-trillion-dollar post-COVID-19 reality?

[2]: Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker, Dec. 2021

[3]: Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker, Apr. 2020

[4]: Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker, Jan. 2020

[5]: Telemedicine Market Size & Share, Growth Outlook 2021-2027

[6]: Telehealth Is Here To Stay — Long After The Pandemic