HEALTHCARE DIGITAL ADOPTION: TELEHEALTH UP 2000%
โConsumer electronics like phones or laptops are now essential medical technology, as doctors visits have transitioned from medical offices to your home. Via, of course, video live-streaming.ย ย โVonage drives virtually all of the major telehealth providers throughout the world,โ says CEO Alan Masarek recently on the TechFirst podcast. โAnd weโve seen literally in the last month a 2,000% increase in video usage in the telehealth vertical.โโ BARE shares an article byย John Koetsierย forย Forbes Consumer Techย on theย unprecedented increase in telehealthย and online video usage as industries shift into digital adoption amongst COVID-19.
As much as our entire reality in the Coronavirus era, thisย massive increase in video usageย is unprecedented. Masarek says heโs never seen anything like it before.
โNo, not in such a short period of time. It is just this amazing spike.โ
One customer,ย Doxy.me, reported 139,000 new providers โ doctors, medical offices, healthcare professionals โ in just one week. They served 1.35 million patients in that week,ย averaging almost 21 million video minutes for 170,000 calls each day. Another customer, Doctolib, is doing 100,000 video consultations every single day.
Itโs unprecedented, but we probably shouldnโt be surprised.
Essentially what weโre seeing is the wholesale shift of an entire profession from physical to digital spaces. With aroundย a millionย active doctors in the U.S., thatโs a lot of visits to replace: easily 20 to 30 million each and every day.
Amazingly, our internet hasnโt crumbled under the strain.
โItโs a micro-services architected solution thatโs run fully on the public cloud,โ Masarek says. โSo as you see one element spike, like weโre seeing with video, you have limitless scalability. And so thatโs been very, very important to accommodate in virtually overnight fashion this massive increase in volume while maintaining very high quality video, very high security levels.โ
Not everything works on video and audio, however.
Itโs hard to take a pulse, or check reflexes by bouncing a mallet on your knee. Itโs hard to listen to a patientโs breathing, or take a close look at a skin condition.
New technology could help, of course. Yourย smartwatchย could probably send doctors data on your pulse, EKG data, as well as activity data, and maybe even your blood pressure. Other wearable technology devices could provide data on temperature, sleeping habits, activity, blood oxygen levels, and more.
But they would need to be widespread, and there would need to be safe, privacy-compliant ways to transmit the data.
Masarek says he thinks this is simply the acceleration of a trend that has long-term potential, and that telemedicine will keep growing even if the current COVID-19 social distancing restrictions are lifted.
โI think that slope may not be as steep as it is right at this moment, but that slope is going to remain very steep because itโs the perfect way to triage healthcare,โ he told me. โSo rather than waiting for a hospital admission, an ER admission, or even just going to your local physician, an opportunity for someone to see you immediately and assess whatโs going on with you as a patient, is critically important, and I think youโre going to see more of that.โ
The full transcript of our conversation is available here.โ
Read theย original article here.
For more information on how we can help you measure your healthcare teamโs engagement and impact, BARE is offering virtual mystery insights.ย Find out more here!
Disclaimerย ofย endorsement: Any reference obtained from this article to a specific product, process, or service does notย constitute or imply anย endorsement by BARE International of the product, process, or service, or its producer or provider.
