Important Developments in Telemedicine

The realization of the full potential of telemedicine has taken longer than many of us anticipated, but the COVID-19 pandemic may finally bring about that realization.

By Francis J. Serbaroli, Skip Short and Ioanna Zevgaras | November 10, 2020 at 11:45 AM

The COVID-19 virus has wreaked havoc upon human lives, our economy, and our health care system. When the full extent of the danger posed by this virus became known, hospitals cancelled virtually all elective surgeries in order to have the capacity to treat what was expected to be a high volume of patients infected with the virus who would need acute care. The demand for ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) skyrocketed. Patients sometimes shared a single ventilator, and physicians, nurses and hospital staff had to re-use PPE and improvise in numerous other ways.