health tracking

In-person Requirements for Remote Prescribing of Controlled Substances: What Next?

6 Comments / Connected Health, digital health, digital medicine, General, healthcare, Healthcare Reform, Mobile Health, Personalized Medicine, remote consultations, telehealth, telemedicine / By

Disreputable, online pharmacies have been a thorn in the side of telehealth for a long time. Because both are internet-based transactions, they are often conflated, and some telehealth companies own their own pharmacy, so it is admittedly complicated.   The main fear regarding online prescribing is that unscrupulous prescribers and pharmacies may be able to distribute …

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Does Telehealth Have a Trust Problem?

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Trust:  A firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something I still recall my nascent days as a telehealth advocate, stretching back to the early 1990s.  I often heard that telehealth would be most appropriate for rural communities because “they couldn’t access an in-person doctor.”  I chafed at this point …

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More Observations on the Need for Evidence to Support Digital Health Adoption

3 Comments / digital health, digital medicine, General, healthcare, Mobile Health, Personalized Medicine, remote consultations, telehealth, telemedicine, wearables / By

In my last blog, I introduced the concept of evidence gathering and the different pace and varying mindset between innovators and early-stage companies and the scientific community, and some reasons why the rigor of quality evidence is preferred over common sense and real-world observation.  I’ll summarize that here.  Of course, you can read the long …

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Growth of the Evidence Base for Digital Health is Crucial for the Adoption

2 Comments / Connected Health, Connected Health Symposium, digital health, digital medicine, General, remote consultations, telehealth, telemedicine, wearables / By

“If current evidence is only followed by clinicians 60% of the time, why is it so important that we have good evidence for our interventions?”  This was a question posed to me by my friend Bleddyn Rees as we prepared for a talk I was recently invited to give at the Digital Health Society Summit …

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Is The Tide Turning In Favor of Telehealth?

3 Comments / Connected Health, Connected Health Symposium, digital health, digital medicine, General, health care, healthcare, Healthcare Reform, Mobile Health, Personalized Medicine, remote consultations, telehealth, telemedicine / By

There has been much controversy in the lay press in the last six months or so regarding telehealth as a tool for addressing the behavioral health crisis.  Much of the conversation has centered on whether a video consultation with a behavioral health provider is of sufficient quality to allow decision-making regarding prescribing psychiatric medications.  There’s …

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Five Ways Telehealth is Better Than In-Person Care

2 Comments / Connected Health, digital health, digital medicine, healthcare, Healthcare Reform, Mobile Health, Personalized Medicine, remote consultations, telehealth, telemedicine / By

Five Ways Telehealth is Better Than In-Person Care Despite the hubbub around telehealth for the past 2+ years, I still hear providers (and some patients) talking about it in absolutes.  Some unattributed quotes:   “My patients prefer to see me in person.”   “I can’t make a diagnosis without the physical exam.” “Can the doctor take good …

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Moving Telehealth Out of the Post-COVID Doldrums

4 Comments / digital health, digital medicine, General, healthcare, Healthcare Reform, Mobile Health, Personalized Medicine, remote consultations, telehealth, telemedicine, wearables / By

Every sailor knows of that dreaded spot where the wind dies, the sail goes slack, and the boat starts bobbing back and forth – the doldrums.  As I reflect on the ups and downs of telehealth over the past two years, the analogy seems apt to me.  In June of 2020, we were riding the …

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Planning for the Next Phase of Telehealth: Scenarios

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Dealing with COVID-19 has been a true game of whack-a-mole for all healthcare stakeholders.  Here in the U.S., so much of telehealth’s penetration into care delivery is dependent on the state of the public health emergency, during which flexibilities put in place by the Administration have enabled utilization through generous reimbursement.  On March 15, President …

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Artificial Intelligence: A Clinician’s Friend or Foe?

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I am privileged as a regular contributor to a local executive education course in healthcare innovation. I give these talks 4-5 times per year, and it has been fascinating over the last 18 months to see how the questions that come from audience members have changed. The individuals that participate in this course are all …

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Lessons Learned from 2020 Provide a Springboard for Increased Telehealth Adoption

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[vc_row][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]While thinking about my keynote address at the 2021 American Telemedicine Association (ATA) annual conference, I kept coming back to Daniel Kahneman’s Nobel-prize-winning theory (his book is called Thinking Fast and Slow). This theory formed the basis for the field we now know as behavioral economics.  What Kahneman describes as heuristics (pattern recognition or …

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