The first article in this series focused on the basics of telehealth for primary care. This included definitions, benefits, and examples. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out here! Now, we’re going to dive deeper into telehealth innovations and challenges. I’m excited for the future of telemedicine opportunities, and hope you are too. 

Virtual healthcare services use skyrocketed during COVID. It dramatically changed the way the world did work and school and shaped how we practice medicine. 

Previously, encounters were limited to patients coming into the office and being seen. There were quite a bit of phone calls, and some Inbasket electronic messages. Occasionally, someone was doing virtual appointments or had a specialty service dedicated to this. Some hospitals had begun using tele-stroke providers or tele-Intensive Care Unit monitoring. But few primary care practices incorporated it into routine services.

ACP is a face-to-face service (including telemedicine) where a patient and their physician discuss the patient’s health care wishes should they become unable to make decisions about their care. Things like advance directives and Health Care Proxies are discussed. [You can generally find ADs on your State attorney generals’ office website.]