Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most people thought you had to see a doctor in person for an exam or diagnosis to be done, but once the pandemic hit, people relied more on telemedicine.
“People thought you had to see somebody in person to do a proper exam,” Peter Yellowlees, chief wellness officer at UC Davis Health in California, told RAND. “Then COVID appeared, and their attitudes all changed. Suddenly, they couldn't work any other way.”
Now, people can have a video conversation with a nurse or therapist online at home. Telemedicine has the power to link a rural clinic to an urban hospital or a medical specialist to a person at home.
But less than 10% of Americans had tried telemedicine before this year.
“I've been to a lot of research conferences, and every year, someone at the podium would say, 'This is the year for telemedicine. It's about to take off. We're on the cusp of a big change,'” Lori Uscher-Pines, a senior policy researcher and RAND's leading expert on telemedicine, told RAND. “We kept hearing that, year after year. But this year, COVID-19 has really put it on the map. Telemedicine has exploded.”
But many clinics lose money with telemedicine and others didn't have the staff to succeed with using telemedicine. Both the proper funds and staff are needed if telemedicine is to succeed.
Clinics and hospitals also need to be able to expand their remote offerings, especially with psychiatry.
Not only that, but patients are seeing a time when they waited in a clinic to be called in for their appointment as a time in the past.
“A lot of patients just don't really want to be going to a clinic and waiting 45 minutes,” senior fellow Keisuke Nakagawa told RAND. “That type of mentality used to work, but it's going to have to change. Telemedicine allows us to meet the lifestyle demands of the incoming generation, patients and providers alike.”
