Telemedicine and other telehealth solutions are gradually gaining momentum. According to Statista, by 2030, the size of the global telemedicine market will reach about $460 billion. Why such steady long-term growth? Many sources state that telehealth tools make providers’ service offers more appealing. No doubt, during the pandemic telehealth tools have become the only communication channel for doctors and their patients. But the pandemic will stop sooner or later, so are there any other use cases in stock for telehealth? We’ll look into the matter.
 
1. Improving Care in Rural Locations
Healthcare in remote and rural locations has always left much to be desired. Understaffed, tiny, and virtually isolated, rural facilities could hardly meet their potential patients’ needs. However, with the COVID-19 at the door, those care locations shifted to remote care via telehealth apps, and the positive results were not long in coming.
 
Thanks to telemedicine and telehealth services, providers manage not only to provide coordinated care amidst the crisis but also to alleviate the situation regarding main rural care pain points. They include lack of computer literacy, insufficient condition monitoring to prevent adverse health events, and cross-provider interoperability. Universities and other community leaders managed to launch specific programs and initiatives to cater to the needs of their key patients.
 
Thus, the specialists from CITRIS Center (University of California) managed to deploy a full-scale program ACTIVATE that aims at catering to the needs of the farmworkers from Merced County, which sustained a serious blow during the pandemic. Besides, those populations are often left aside by the traditional healthcare system. The platform offers access to quality telemedicine services, remote patient monitoring (RPM), and training to bridge the gaps in health literacy and computer skills. Clinicians from partner provider, Livingston Community Health, have noted ACTIVATE is popular among patients, who are eager to understand their health better and manage it independently.
 
Some rural hospitals have managed to leap forward and enhance workflows for all patient groups. That’s the case with Montana-based Tanner Health System. At the pandemic outset, the provider leveraged telehealth options in full. They made telehealth available to all patient groups in the community. Clinicians have delivered telemedicine services in a multitude of specialties, including neurology and psychiatry. They have handed out RPM tools to chronic-condition and post-acute care patients and monitored their health parameters continuously. This advanced telehealth system has helped Tanner reduce exposure risks for doctors and patients with no damage to the quality of care.
 
Telehealth services may serve not only patients but also clinicians. Rural and remote primary care providers or hospital staff may feel deprived of up-to-date information on therapies and treatment or health management. The ECHO program helps address this challenge. Via the platform, health specialists from remote or rural areas across the globe may request telementoring from renowned experts in a virtual clinic. That “hub-and-spoke” training approach helped clinicians from Namibia and India mitigate the coronavirus crisis in their regions.
 
Telehealth solutions may work as game changers in healthcare provision in remote and rural areas. However, their implementation still has a major roadblock on the way. It’s the insufficient broadband coverage and connectivity issues in such locations. Luckily, in April 2021, Rural Utilities Services (RUS) launched the Rural eConnectivity Program. The program offers loans or grants to facilitate high-speed network deployment in rural areas.
 
2. Refining Experience in Nursing Homes
The use of telehealth has skyrocketed in nursing homes during the COVID-19 crisis. It has helped professionals curb life-threatening complications in elderly patients and reduce exposure risk for this vulnerable population group.
 
Now as the pandemic is subsiding, telehealth technologies may find other use cases in long-term care facilities. Such solutions may help upscale patient experience in nursing homes. For example, telehealth helps optimize care delivery for hip fracture patients. The CDC reports it happens to about 300,000 people older than 65 annually. With telemedicine in place, the injured person only needs to visit a medical imaging facility. The needed durable medical equipment may be delivered right to the care facility, which reduces transportation costs and the associated stress levels.
 
3. Disease Prevention and Informative Follow-Ups
Telehealth solutions have found their users among young people as well. Telemedicine and other telehealth solutions allow young people to get a consultation anytime and from any location, which doesn’t disrupt their busy daily schedules. Young adults often recur to e-consultations when it comes to some embarrassing health issues (urinary tract diseases, STDs, and other).
 
Besides, US practitioners report considerable success in some telemedicine programs launched nationwide. Such programs offer emergency contraception, STD screening, and pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention. In November 2020, such a program was launched by Stanford Children’s Hospital (California). Thanks to the program, adolescents and young people (up to 25 years old) may gain access to quality preventive care that is hardly accessible otherwise.
 
4. Assisting the Uninsured
Telehealth solutions may help provide care to the uninsured. Fearing sky-high fees, such people oftentimes skip appointments. This may result in uncontrollable health deterioration and premature death.
 
To alleviate the cost burden for such people, some providers started offering telehealth services for uninsured chronic-condition patients at a lower cost or for free. That’s the case with Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia) and Giving Health, a charity organization. Other providers deploy telehealth kiosks in significant community locations (libraries, barbershops, etc.) Such efforts may help extend quality care to the populations below the poverty line.
 
Summing Up
As we can see, telehealth tools are not a one-time solution for situations of crisis and turmoil. Beyond the pandemic, connected health may help providers address other healthcare challenges. Telehealth solutions may assist providers with reaching underserved vulnerable patients—rural residents, the elderly living in long-term care facilities, and the uninsured. The tools may also be used in preventive care for educating patients and lowering the risks of infectious diseases.
 
With such an extensive reach, telehealth solutions may contribute to improving population health nationwide.
 

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Inga Shugalo is a Healthcare Industry Analyst at Itransition, a custom software development company headquartered in Denver, Colorado. She focuses on Healthcare IT, highlighting the industry challenges and technology solutions that tackle them. Inga’s articles explore diagnostic potential of healthcare IoT, opportunities of precision medicine, robotics and VR in healthcare and more.