You’re sitting at the table eating dinner when you receive a notification. A woman wearing a light blue top fills the screen of your phone with a video message. “Hello, this is Diane in Dr. Halpern’s office,” the woman says. “The computer saw that your blood sugar and heart rate numbers went out of range yesterday and today. I’d like you set up a quick virtual visit, okay?”
That’s where telemedicine could be headed in the next five years or so. It won’t just be virtual—it’ll also be proactive, hyper-personalized, and data-driven.
Lots of people are having their first experiences with telemedicine right now as a result of the pandemic. They like it, and they’ll very likely expect to be able to continue accessing healthcare in this way after COVID-19 is long gone. The healthcare industry is notoriously slow in adapting new technologies, but COVID-19 may prove to be telehealth’s watershed moment.
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