Contributed by The Doctors Company thedoctors.com more smoothly into their workflows,1 this moment calls for us to reconsider how we are using telemedicine relative to care access, quality, safety, and the core principles of patient-centered care. Specialty Example: Obstetrics Obstetricians monitor risk indicators like blood pressure and blood glucose, which help them intervene early in cases of preeclampsia and/or gestational diabetes. With the increasing availability of at-home monitors for blood pressure and blood glucose, the option to collect at-home metrics (which, admittedly, some patients do more reliably than others) shows how remote care can sometimes be safer and/or more accessible care. Surprisingly, I’ve heard obstetricians say they value telemedicine most with their high-risk patients, simply because it facilitates more frequent conversations. This finding also turns up in other specialties. Specialty Example: Otolaryngology As in obstetrics, the physical exam needs of otolaryngology might seem impervious to many telemedicine advancements. Yet the author of a 2020 JAMA article argued to his Many specialties, facing the pandemic’s imperative to improvise, formed similar discussion groups, which are now disseminating their findings via peer- reviewed medical journals or formulating best practices with their medical professional societies. Fortunately, each specialty’s findings have connotations for patients in a variety of settings. With 2020’s spike in telemedicine visits followed by 2021’s continued record-breaking increases,1 we now know a surprising amount about how to safely provide telemedicine care. As practices and hospitals work to integrate their telemedicine platforms Early in the pandemic, I heard an obstetrician say that a medical setting was the last place many patients were willing to go. As a result, he was checking on prenatal patients using telemedicine. With questions about standard of care in mind, I gathered obstetric leaders into a meeting group where providers discussed ways to safely utilize phone and video modalities to continue prenatal care beyond the pandemic. Would this modality, necessary in a time of crisis, be continued in the “new normal”? Sept / Oct 2022 | michigan MEDICINE® 23 (CONTINUED ON PAGE 24)
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