The New Role of Telehealth in Contemporary Medicine

Abstract

Purpose of Review Understand the current uses for telehealth as well as future directions as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic and cardiovascular medicine. Recent Findings Telehealth interventions in various forms have proven to be efficacious in the management of obesity, hypertension, glycemic control in diabetes, hyperlipidemia, medication adherence, and ICU length of stay and mortality. The use and study of such interventions have been greatly expanded during the pandemic partly due to the expanded coverage by payers. However, heterogenous interventions and a relative lack of cost analyses are barriers to more widespread adoption. Summary Telehealth has proven efficacy for modifying risk factors for cardiovascular disease. To date, this has not been shown to translate to a reduction in hard cardiovascular endpoints such as mortality. With ongoing research and expanded funding, the role of telehealth is likely to evolve as the COVID pandemic continues.

The syndromic triad of COVID-19, type 2 diabetes, and malnutrition

“…This effect could stem from healthful behavior modification associated with CGM use (technological nudges and motivation) ( 176 ). The integration of telehealth stands to diminish pre-pandemic barriers to healthcare, but it is important to consider stakeholder acceptance and inclusion of vulnerable populations ( 181 ).…”

Improving Telemonitoring for Chronic Heart Failure Patients: A Data-driven Investigation into improving Equity and AI models for Telemedicine

“…Telemedicine and telehealth/telehealthcare are umbrella terms covering health interventions that use digital/internet-based technologies to receive and transmit data between patients and carers (61). While telemedicine has increasingly gained traction in recent years (62,63), the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic presented a sudden need to remotely deliver healthcare and kickstarted the adaptation of telehealth technologies (18,64,65). While the pandemic is mostly behind us and remote delivery of health care is no longer a strict necessity, many telehealth technologies remain in service, with clinicians and patients describing them as "accessible, comfortable, safe" (66).…”

“…Treatment and management of chronic illnesses have a particular relationship with telehealth technologies because of the patient's reliance on regular interactions with the healthcare system. With the increasing prevalence of people living with chronic disease in the Western world (62), telemedicine has been suggested as a potentially cost-saving technology that maintains high quality of care (11,65,67). This is also true for CHF in particular, where novel structured telephone support and telemonitoring interventions have been developed (11).…”