Studies

Healio: Orthopedic Telehealth Remains Popular Despite Reopening of Clinical Offices After COVID-19 Despite vaccine availability and the reopening of clinical offices after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth remains a popular choice for orthopedic patients. Using the terms “orthopedic,” “surgeon,” “doctor,” “injury,” “pain” and “telehealth,” researchers from Rothman Orthopaedic Institute performed a [...]

Health Affairs: Impact Of The New Jersey COVID-19 Temporary Emergency Reciprocity Licensure Program On Health Care Workforce Supply During the pandemic, New Jersey’s COVID-19 Temporary Emergency Reciprocity Licensure Program provided temporary licenses to more than 31,000 out-of-state health care practitioners. A survey found that practitioners who used this temporary license originated from every [...]

University of Michigan: Disparities in Accessing Care Could Worsen if Audio Visits Aren’t Available as a Telehealth Option A study found that audio-only appointments made up nearly half of the Michigan Medicine Department of Urology’s telehealth visits during the first few months of the pandemic. Forty-four percent of patients who had a telehealth [...]

United Health Group: Telehealth Enabled a 26 Percent Increase in Outpatient Behavioral Health Visits Among Commercially Insured Individuals According to a report from UnitedHealth Group (UHG), telehealth flexibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a 26 percent spike in overall utilization of in-network outpatient behavioral health. UHG used data from commercially-insured Optum Behavioral [...]

JAMA Internal Medicine: Trends in Remote Patient Monitoring Use in Traditional Medicare A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 555 percent increase in the use of remote patient monitoring (RPM) among Medicare beneficiaries. Regarding specialties, researchers noted that primary care physicians were the most common [...]

American Journal of Psychiatry: Impact of COVID-19 Telehealth Policy Changes on Buprenorphine Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder According to this study, drug treatment of veterans with opioid use disorder increased during the first year of the pandemic. This suggests that the rapid shift from in-person to telehealth visits at Veterans’ Affairs (VA) medical [...]

JMIR Med Information: The Impact of Telemedicine on Physicians’ After-hours Electronic Health Record “Work Outside Work” During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Cohort Study This study assesses the impact of the transition to telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic on physicians’ EHR-based after-hours workload (ie, “work outside work”) at a large academic medical center in [...]

Annals of Internal Medicine: Telehealth Strategies for the Delivery of Maternal Health Care Telehealth strategies to supplement or replace in-person maternity care may affect maternal health outcomes. The purpose of this rapid review was to evaluate the effectiveness and harms of telehealth strategies for maternal health care given the recent expansion of telehealth [...]

JAMA Internal Medicine: Effect of a Comprehensive Telehealth Intervention vs Telemonitoring and Care Coordination in Patients with Persistently Poor Type 2 Diabetes Control According to this study, a comprehensive approach to telemonitoring type 2 diabetes bolstered glucose control in tough-to-manage patients. The study found that, compared with telemonitoring/care coordination, comprehensive telehealth improved multiple [...]

Brookings Institute: The Roadmap to Telehealth Efficacy: Care, Health, and Digital Equities In this Brookings report, researchers propose flexibilities within the current health care system that accommodate the changes imposed by new technologies, as well as continued government incentives to drive more competitive options and alternatives for health care delivery. They also argue that [...]