Virtual care skyrocketed during COVID-19, but how much virtual care is here to stay?

In a recent interview, Roy Schoenberg, MD, of the virtual health magnet, Amwell, sat down with Oliver Wyman Partner, Tom Mikuckis, to discuss the future of telehealth. Roy also shared his thoughts on how technology will change patient care interactions.

Roy emphasized that telehealth must have flexibility in regards to its adaptation, versus being executed in a more scripted fashion. He predicts that within the next 10 years, physical, digital, and automated care will ideally apply to all patients, not just certain patients and that the care of any one patient will eventually become a mix of all three classes.

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On concerns about the quality of care in telehealth: 

“The quality of care that’s being delivered was actually surprisingly good — in some cases even better.  … The majority of [home care] is not going to be done as blind dates. … It’s going to be done regularly by the team that’s familiar with [the patient] and is responsible for them in physical settings just as they are in a digital setting. … It’s going to be the same care, just delivered on a different channel, so the quality is going to be fairly similar.”

On how this impacts health care practitioners:

“We need to not only think about the receiving end — we always think about telehealth as the patient experience — we have to find a way to weave the ability to do telehealth simply and cleanly into the workflow of clinicians. … They need to be able, through technology, to go in and out into the patient environment at the home … and check up on them using their workflow their scheduling … that’s where the investment is.”