Currently, following the health emergency, analysts estimate that more than 900 million virtual consultations will be held by 2020.
A study by the AMA (American Medical Association) showed that between 2016 and 2019, the use of Digital Health services increased among physicians in the United States.
Seven digital health solutions were measured, of these, three grew in their use by health professionals: remote monitoring, clinical decision support tools and telehealth. And during the last three years the medical acceptance of virtual care has doubled, from 14% in 2016 to 28% in 2019.
The results of the study concluded that doctors are beginning to adapt to the technologies offered by digital health and to overcome resistance to its use. One of the reasons that had slowed the advance of telemedicine for years.
The growth in the use of these technologies by doctors, can mean an increase in training in telehealth, in order to rural areas to be covered with digital health services such as remote care.
However, following the emergency by the COVID-19 outbreak and the increased use of digital health services, the AMA issued a series of recommendations on telehealth
In recent months telemedicine in the US has had massive growth due to the health emergency. According to analysts at Forrester Research, adopting digital health services during the pandemic could achieve one billion virtual health care interactions by the end of this year. Which would mean the largest increase in the use of these services in a year.
Visits to telehealth services increased by 50% in March alone, after a state of emergency, has been declared in that country. Also, the U.S. government reduced one of the barriers to the mass adoption of telemedicine: the cost. In addition, regulations were temporarily modified to allow easy access to the use of devices to perform and take virtual consultations.
