Parks Associates’ Virtual Connected Health Summit highlighted the session “Telehealth and Remote Monitoring Health to the Home” which provided in depth details on telehealth use and growth in today’s world.
Parks Association research found that 23 million households, 23% of U.S. internet households, have used telehealth for therapy or for counseling services. This usage comes as overall usage of telehealth services spiked due to the pandemic.
Kristen Hanich, Director, Research, Parks Associates moderated the panel discussion on Telehealth and Use Growth. Research shows that 64% of U.S. broadband households used a telehealth service in the 12 months prior, as compared to just 15% in 2019.
She emphasized that there are strong indications that consumers will expect telehealth to be available to many more in the future. However, as she pointed out, there are major shifts and changes going forward and into the future.
Dr. Chen Medical Director, Bright.md, mentioned how her company using asynchronous telehealth to care for common conditions, is able to treat patients in less than 4 minutes. Bright.md is fully virtual through a mobile phone, computer, or a tablet
The use of telehealth has been so successful at the company that one-half of the respondents using virtual care want to continue to do so in the future. However, there are challenges since consumers have to know when and which multiple virtual options are appropriate to use in each medical situation.
John Jesser, General Manager, Strategic Clients, Amwell explained how COVID-19 made it possible to get care by integrating care with virtual care. Now the population is more aware of how telehealth can be a natural way of getting care through 24/7 call centers.
As he explained, the behavioral health space is growing and being used to provide telehealth every day. However, there are not enough therapists to treat all mental health issues so more digital tools and new techniques are needed in the field.
Iris Berman, VP Telehealth Service Northwell Health, explained how the use of telehealth is now stabilizing and Northwell is able to use telehealth 10-15% of the time. She said, “The use of virtual healthcare needs to be multidisciplinary and the ability to coordinate all visits is very important.
Today, with the use of virtual care, all patients need to use a full team approach with their doctors but it is very important at the same time to enable doctors and patients to be able to incorporate all patient data and lab reports into medical records accurately.
Dr. James Wantuck, Associate CMO at Accolade and PlushCare, pointed that at PlushCare, users can search for doctors, choose one, and then schedule an appointment even for the same day. Consultations are held via video chat or with a text chat for follow- up questions. PlushCare works very hard to develop a good relationship between doctor and patient.
Go to https://www.parksassociates.com for more information on the Connected Health Summit held March 24, 2022 and the Telehealth and Remote Monitoring Health to the Home and the panel discussion on Telehealth and Use Growth with Kristen Hanich, Director, Research Parks Associates as moderator.