Continuing the AMA’s “Look Forward/Look Back” series, AMA CXO Todd Unger talks with Meg Barron, the AMA’s vice president of digital health strategy, about the role of telehealth post-pandemic and a new program that can help practices optimize and expand their telehealth efforts.
Tag Archives: TELEMEDICINE
Telemedicine: Disruptive & Sustaining Innovation
“…telemedicine can improve through both sustaining innovation (incremental improvement upon what we are already doing for patients) and through disruptive innovation (simpler solutions for patients with simpler needs and/or patients we are not currently serving).”
Telemedicine as a Sustaining Innovation
Most telemedicine in its current form is a sustaining innovation. There has been incremental improvement in telecommunication technologies from the traditional phone to current videoconferencing software integrated with electronic medical records, development of secure platforms for short messaging service (SMS) between patients and providers, and introduction of connected devices that can monitor and transmit patients’ health data to their providers.
Disruptive Telemedicine
Beyond improving the way care is already delivered, telemedicine may also serve as a vehicle for disruption in overlooked health care markets, particularly low-end or new-market segments. Many customers are currently overserved by traditional care delivery in the form of regular visits (in-person or virtual) with a physician, which are structured to provide more than what they need and less of what they want.
THE DOCTORS 101 CHRONIC SYMPTOMS & CONDITIONS #60: ITCHY EARS
Itchy ears; even if from trivial causes, they demand attention. Swimmer’s ear is a subset of itchy ears, which can lead to some severe infections and sleepless nights. Water remaining in the ears dissolves the natural, protective earwax, and provides a nice warm bath for some nasty bugs like Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Swimmers ear is the result, and the best strategy is to prevent it by keeping the water out.
After swimming, I often twist some Kleenex and insert it into my ear canal to “wick out” the water. Some people use a 70% Isopropyl alcohol solution to rinse out the water. Don’t use the 99% isopropyl alcohol; it’ll burn like crazy and for some reason is not as effective an antibacterial. If the itchy ear starts to become painful, and the pain is made worse by pulling on the earlobe, the best strategy is to call the doctor.
Hearing aids comprise a special problem. Earwax can damage the mechanism of the hearing aid, and the hearing aid can cause an irritation that produces itching. Be sure to ask the audiologist about how to prevent problems.
I wear earplugs to deliver sound to my ears when I swim. The ear plugs can cause irritation or even an allergic reaction. I believe this is one of the reasons my ears itch most of the time. My ENT physician suggested that I put a little baby oil in my ear, which I am continuing to do.
Accumulations of earwax can also cause itching. Most of the time I remove the wax myself with an over-the-counter kit containing an ear syringe and glyceryl peroxide. About every third time I need wax removed from my ear, I go to the ENT doctors to be sure I don’t have some sort of fungal infection or other chronic condition.
If you swab your ear with a Q-tip, you risk pushing the wax deeper into the canal, and create a problem. Nonetheless, I still occasionally put a little bit of 1% hydrocortisone cream if the itching gets extreme. My doctor said that this accelerates the build up of debris and the need for irrigating the canal.
The old adage that you shouldn’t put anything into your ear smaller than your elbow is a good interdict to embrace. Digging out the wax with some sort of instrument risks damaging the canal or hurting your eardrum.
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—Dr. C.
Technology: Wearable Heart Monitors (Mayo)
It’s like an auto mechanic running a diagnostic test on your car’s engine while it’s out of the garage and traveling down the road. Wearable heart monitors are valuable tools that cardiologists use to determine if you are experiencing atrial fibrillation, which is your heart beating at an irregular or rapid rhythm.
DOCTORS PODCAST: MEDICAL & TELEHEALTH NEWS (OCT 25)
A weekly podcast on the latest medical, science and telehealth news.
DOCTORS PODCAST: MEDICAL & TELEHEALTH NEWS (SEP 26)
A weekly podcast on the latest medical, science and telehealth news.
Telemedicine: Many Men Now Prefer Virtual Visits
Cleveland Clinic National Survey Finds Some Men Prefer Seeing Their Doctor Virtually
National MENtion It® campaign examines shift toward the use of virtual healthcare after Cleveland Clinic sees 37,000 virtual visits in 2019 increase to 1.2 million in 2020.
A new national survey by Cleveland Clinic reveals that some men prefer seeing their doctor virtually, especially when it comes to discussing men’s health issues.
According to the survey, 44% of all men said they prefer discussing sexual health issues with a doctor online or over the phone because they are too embarrassed to do it in person, and 66% of all men have used digital health services in the past 12 months. Cleveland Clinic, which went from 37,000 virtual visits in 2019 to 1.2 million in 2020, is fully open for in-person care but continues to see the trend toward increased use of virtual healthcare in 2021.
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HEALTH: ANNUAL PHYSICAL EXAMS ARE GOING VIRTUAL
Telemdicine: Growth Rate Peaked During April 2020, Then Stabilized In 2021
A year ago, we estimated that up to $250 billion of US healthcare spend could potentially be shifted to virtual or virtually enabled care. Approaching this potential level of virtual health is not a foregone conclusion. It would likely require sustained consumer and clinician adoption and accelerated redesign of care pathways to incorporate virtual modalities.
- Telehealth utilization has stabilized at levels 38X higher than before the pandemic. After an initial spike to more than 32 percent of office and outpatient visits occurring via telehealth in April 2020, utilization levels have largely stabilized, ranging from 13 to 17 percent across all specialties.2 This utilization reflects more than two-thirds of what we anticipated as visits that could be virtualized.3
- Similarly, consumer and provider attitudes toward telehealth have improved since the pre-COVID-19 era. Perceptions and usage have dropped slightly since the peak in spring 2020. Some barriers—such as perceptions of technology security—remain to be addressed to sustain consumer and provider virtual health adoption, and models are likely to evolve to optimize hybrid virtual and in-person care delivery.
- Some regulatory changes that facilitated expanded use of telehealth have been made permanent, for example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ expansion of reimbursable telehealth codes for the 2021 physician fee schedule. But uncertainty still exists as to the fate of other services that may lose their waiver status when the public health emergency ends.
- Investment in virtual care and digital health more broadly has skyrocketed, fueling further innovation, with 3X the level of venture capitalist digital health investment in 2020 than it had in 2017.4
- Virtual healthcare models and business models are evolving and proliferating, moving from purely “virtual urgent care” to a range of services enabling longitudinal virtual care, integration of telehealth with other virtual health solutions, and hybrid virtual/in-person care models, with the potential to improve consumer experience/convenience, access, outcomes, and affordability.
Telemedicine: Mayo Clinic Otolaryngology (Video)
The department of Otolaryngology offers telemedicine as a safe, secure and convenient way to consult with our care teams. Advanced planning, follow up visits and attending a consultation from a distant with a family member are beneficial ways to utilize telemedicine. See here for information on our clinic and specialty groups related to the department of Otolaryngology. https://www.mayoclinic.org/department…
Otorhinolaryngology is a surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the surgical and medical management of conditions of the head and neck. Doctors who specialize in this area are called otorhinolaryngologists, otolaryngologists, head and neck surgeons, or ENT surgeons or physicians.
Doctors Without Waiting Rooms 