With the advent of national health reform, millions more Americans are gaining access to a health care system that is struggling to provide high-quality care at reduced costs. The increasing adoption of electronic technologies is widely recognized as a key strategy for making health care more cost-effective. This article examines the concept of connected health as an overarching structure for telemedicine and telehealth, and it provides examples of its value to professionals as well as patients. Policy makers, academe, patient advocacy groups, and private-sector organizations need to create partnerships to rapidly test, evaluate, deploy, and pay for new care models that use telemedicine.

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Widespread transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has resulted in a global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that is straining medical resources worldwide. In the United States (US), hospitals and clinics are challenged to accommodate surging patient populations and care needs while preventing further infection spread. Under such conditions, meeting with patients via telehealth technology is a practical way to help maintain meaningful contact while mitigating SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The application of telehealth to nutrition care can, in turn, contribute to better outcomes and lower burdens on healthcare resources. To identify trends in telehealth nutrition care before and during the pandemic, we emailed a 20-question, qualitative structured survey to approximately 200 registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) from hospitals and clinics that have participated in the Malnutrition Quality Improvement Initiative (MQii). RDN respondents reported increased use of telehealth-based care for nutritionally at-risk patients during the pandemic. They suggested that use of such telehealth nutrition programs supported positive patient outcomes, and some of their sites planned to continue the telehealth-based nutrition visits in post-pandemic care. Nutrition care by telehealth technology has the potential to improve care provided by practicing RDNs, such as by reducing no-show rates and increasing retention as well as improving health outcomes for patients. Therefore, we call on healthcare professionals and legislative leaders to implement policy and funding changes that will support improved access to nutrition care via telehealth.

Team-based primary care offers the potential to dramatically improve the quality and efficiency of care, but its broader adoption is hindered by an education system that trains health professions in silos. Collaborative models that educate multiple practitioners together are needed to create a new generation of health professionals able to work in efficiently functioning teams. Changes in professional cultures, organizational structures, clinical partnerships, admissions, accreditation, and funding models will be required to support the expansion of collaborative education effectively.

In 1991, the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at the University of California, San Francisco, set out to develop a model of community collaborative research that would bring the skills of science to the service of HIV prevention and the knowledge of service providers into the domain of research. Essential elements of the model were training for community-based organizations (CBOs) in research protocol writing, partnership between CBOs and CAPS researchers, program research funding, support to implement studies and analyze results, and a program manager to oversee the effort and foster the relationships between CBOs and researchers. In this article, the authors describe the CAPS model of consortium-based community collaborative research. They also introduce a set of papers, written by researchers and service providers, that describes collaborative research projects conducted by research institutions and CBOs and illustrates how collaboration can change both HIV prevention research and service.