For years, going to your health care provider meant going to the provider – being physically present in the waiting room when you name was called. Advocates for telehealth say you don’t always need to do that. Meeting your provider remotely, by video or phone, could expand access to health care services.
Adopting telehealth has been relatively slow, in part because of restrictive state and federal regulations, technology problems, including broadband access, and whether or not patients feel comfortable interacting with their providers remotely.
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, providers and patients are now widely embracing telehealth. In this edition of HealthConnections, Dr. Carole Myers from the University of Tennessee College of Nursing discusses how telehealth is being used to improve access to care and patient outcomes, and whether the recent surge in acceptance is temporary or could be a new normal.
