How the virtual health landscape is shifting in a rapidly changing world

"VIRTUAL health offers great promise to transform care delivery by meeting patients where they are—on the road, at home, in a long-term care facility, or a remote intensive care unit—and expanding access to clinical expertise. As the health care landscape evolves, organizations should keep the patient at the center of the business model. This means making the patient-physician interaction seamless, convenient, and high quality.
From January 15–February 14, 2020, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions conducted its biennial survey of US physicians, which featured questions around physicians’ experience and perspectives on virtual health. This survey was conducted before COVID-19 significantly impacted the United States. Before COVID-19, most physicians were not intending to use many virtual health solutions, and those who were using virtual health were for the most part only gradually increasing their usage when compared to 2018. Few physicians in the survey reported clinical advantage as a top benefit to virtual health. When the US began responding to the pandemic, many of those orthodoxies appeared to change. The period of March through May 2020 saw an unprecedented shift to virtual health—fueled by regulatory flexibility and necessity. Even though our survey was fielded before the public health crisis, some of the challenges that physicians raised about using these technologies prior to the pandemic will continue to be instructive as health care systems develop their new virtual health strategies...." Lire la suite