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Overview of telehealth in the United States since the COVID-19 public health emergency: a narrative review

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency (PHE) resulted in rapid expansion and use of telehealth services. Regulatory and reimbursement flexibilities were put in place to ensure patients had continued access to care while the health system was overwhe...

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Autores principales: Andino, Juan J., Eyrich, Nicholas W., Boxer, Richard J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: AME Publishing Company 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10364039/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37492124
http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/mhealth-23-15
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author Andino, Juan J.
Eyrich, Nicholas W.
Boxer, Richard J.
author_facet Andino, Juan J.
Eyrich, Nicholas W.
Boxer, Richard J.
author_sort Andino, Juan J.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency (PHE) resulted in rapid expansion and use of telehealth services. Regulatory and reimbursement flexibilities were put in place to ensure patients had continued access to care while the health system was overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases. These changes have allowed clinicians to use and researchers to evaluate telehealth in new ways. METHODS: This narrative review focuses on highlighting telehealth research and evaluation that took place from March 2020 to February 2023 in the outpatient setting of the United States healthcare system. KEY CONTENT AND FINDINGS: The research conducted during the COVID-19 PHE shows that telehealth was primarily used as a substitute for in-person care, to maintain continuity of care for established patients, and has not had a negative impact on clinical outcomes or resulted in increasing healthcare costs. CONCLUSIONS: Studies show high patient and physician satisfaction, similar clinical outcomes and suggest that telehealth is used as a substitute for in-person care. The findings of this narrative review have direct implications for key stakeholders using telehealth now and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients, physicians and providers, healthcare leaders and administrators, as well as policymakers should consider how telehealth should continue to be reimbursed and regulated even as the COVID-19 PHE expired in May 2023.
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spelling pubmed-103640392023-07-25 Overview of telehealth in the United States since the COVID-19 public health emergency: a narrative review Andino, Juan J. Eyrich, Nicholas W. Boxer, Richard J. Mhealth Review Article BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency (PHE) resulted in rapid expansion and use of telehealth services. Regulatory and reimbursement flexibilities were put in place to ensure patients had continued access to care while the health system was overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases. These changes have allowed clinicians to use and researchers to evaluate telehealth in new ways. METHODS: This narrative review focuses on highlighting telehealth research and evaluation that took place from March 2020 to February 2023 in the outpatient setting of the United States healthcare system. KEY CONTENT AND FINDINGS: The research conducted during the COVID-19 PHE shows that telehealth was primarily used as a substitute for in-person care, to maintain continuity of care for established patients, and has not had a negative impact on clinical outcomes or resulted in increasing healthcare costs. CONCLUSIONS: Studies show high patient and physician satisfaction, similar clinical outcomes and suggest that telehealth is used as a substitute for in-person care. The findings of this narrative review have direct implications for key stakeholders using telehealth now and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients, physicians and providers, healthcare leaders and administrators, as well as policymakers should consider how telehealth should continue to be reimbursed and regulated even as the COVID-19 PHE expired in May 2023. AME Publishing Company 2023-07-15 /pmc/articles/PMC10364039/ /pubmed/37492124 http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/mhealth-23-15 Text en 2023 mHealth. All rights reserved. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Review Article
Andino, Juan J.
Eyrich, Nicholas W.
Boxer, Richard J.
Overview of telehealth in the United States since the COVID-19 public health emergency: a narrative review
title Overview of telehealth in the United States since the COVID-19 public health emergency: a narrative review
title_full Overview of telehealth in the United States since the COVID-19 public health emergency: a narrative review
title_fullStr Overview of telehealth in the United States since the COVID-19 public health emergency: a narrative review
title_full_unstemmed Overview of telehealth in the United States since the COVID-19 public health emergency: a narrative review
title_short Overview of telehealth in the United States since the COVID-19 public health emergency: a narrative review
title_sort overview of telehealth in the united states since the covid-19 public health emergency: a narrative review
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10364039/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37492124
http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/mhealth-23-15
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