The Rise of Telemedicine in the Age of Covid-19

Telehealth services have been used for years to provide healthcare to underserved communities such as patients in rural settings. As defined by the Health Services and Resources Administration, telehealth is the use of electronic information and telecommunication technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, health administration, and public health. While telehealth and more specifically telemedicine is not new, the COVID-19 pandemic created an environment where remote clinical services were needed more than ever before. Practitioners made use of video chat programs with patients in place of in-person office visits to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.   Due to the need to keep patients safe while providing healthcare during the health crisis, federal and state government regulators made changes to telehealth policies allowing a greater number of people to make use of these types of services. Though some rule changes are temporary, other changes to policy may be permanent as the increased use of telehealth brought to light the value of remote clinical services in a broad range of medical fields. Still, along with the realization that telehealth tools help patients, some consider concerns and issues that may need to be addressed in order to ensure telehealth and telemedicine is used responsibly and that underserved patients continue to benefit from its use.

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