There is no questioning the massive impact that telehealth has and will be delivering to a number of healthcare sectors in the near future. All of the latest polls suggest that both patients and healthcare providers want more options when it comes to telehealth services and it is projected that anywhere from 20-25% of all healthcare services will use some form of telehealth innovation by the year 2025. The federal government is supportive of this by keeping the regulatory environment that allows delivery of telehealth services as open as possible, across state lines, and not changing the rules that the public health emergency declaration of 2020 surrounding the initial Covid pandemic initiated. Most payers of healthcare services are responding to this increasing need at various speeds by adopting telehealth “services”.
At the moment the only available telehealth services are through text, audio and video. This is better than what was available before 2020, but far from optimal simply because it does not allow the healthcare provider a key component of any medical consultation - a physical examination. Here is where the next generation of telehealth will make a quantum leap in what it is capable of achieving. By allowing a physical examination, the next generation of telehealth will allow healthcare providers to truly embrace the technology by allowing them to evaluate and treat patients as if they were right in front of the healthcare provider in real time.
These systems allow providers to take care of more patients by expanding their practices to include nursing home patients, patients unable to physically come to their offices for a number of reasons, patients that might be out of town, or to simply treat and manage patients at home using home deployable systems. Healthcare providers now will be able to stick to their schedule without leaving the office and weave seamlessly from an in-person visit to a remote telehealth visit while keeping the integrity of the evaluation by including a physical exam. Home health, nursing, hospital-at-home are all now possible.
Why is this such a big deal you ask? Imagine a consultation with a cardiologist where the cardiologist cannot listen to your heart? Or likewise a consultation with a lung specialist where they cannot listen to your lungs.
Physical examination is paramount for every single healthcare consultation and evaluation. Without it, healthcare providers will not be able to deliver the best for their patients and too often will arrive at the wrong diagnosis and outcome. Medical and nursing schools are very much still teaching that a physical exam is needed with every patient encounter and expects proficiency in physical examination to complete training. The next generation of telehealth systems will also allow for a myriad of new uses for the telehealth encounter where none exist at the moment. New points of care will be created expanding services and improving healthcare equity at the same time.
Let's look at some of these applications. Think of a cruise ship while on vacation or a remote hotel location in a country or city where little or no reliable medical services are available. Likewise for the private boat industry. These next generation products will be portable and since internet connectivity is now readily available throughout this industry, yacht occupants can benefit from live healthcare services, saving both time and cost, but more importantly getting invaluable, timely health information to decide what happens next. Furthermore, most if not all of these telehealth encounters will likely involve the healthcare provider that knows them best, keeping with continuity of care and member choice. For the nursing home space, it will be a game changer. Not only will it keep the nursing home members connected with their own physicians throughout their stay, which is known to reduce re-hospitalization rates, but if a consultation is needed to a subspecialist, it can be readily done without delay, reducing very morbid and costly re-hospitalizations.
