Is Telehealth Hitting Its Intended Target?
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
Telehealth was designed in part as a way for patients in rural areas to interact with their doctors remotely, but who’s really using it?
One of the expected outcomes of the development of telehealth was that patients in rural areas would be first in foremost in using it. However, according to the Department of Commerce (DOC), "Internet users living in urban areas were twice as likely to participate in online healthcare activities; 8 percent of users in urban areas reported engaging in these activities, compared with 4 percent of their rural counterparts."
The DOC goes on to say, “The relatively low uptake of telemedicine in rural areas suggests that it has not yet reached its potential, especially given that some experts consider telemedicine particularly important in rural areas where medical professionals may be miles away.”
The DOC details all this in its study, Exploring the Digital Nation - America’s Emerging Online Experience. The study concludes, “Researching health plans and finding medical information were relatively common online activities. Less common, however, was online interaction with healthcare professionals, and telemedicine remains in its infancy.”
According to EHR Intelligence - writing about the DOC report - economics are also a factor in telehealth with “users with incomes over $100,000 ... nearly three times as likely to use telehealth or research medical information online than their low-income counterparts.” EHR Intelligence suggests one reason for the urban/rural usage differences could be the availability of stable Internet connections in rural areas, writing, “Broadband access still plagues remote areas, even as telehealth is increasingly targeted to far-flung rural residents and government agencies push to connect rural hospitals and clinics with reliable internet to facilitate the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs).”
The DOC study also showed that education level was a factor in the use of telehealth. According to the study, 47% of college graduates had researched healthcare online while only 19% of those without a high school diploma had done the same.
Another analysis of the study, by Clinical Innovation + Technology, noted EHRs are not being viewed by any group, rural or urban. “Only 7 percent of Internet users told the Census Bureau that they go online to access medical records, participate in a video conference with a doctor, or use the Internet for remote procedures such as heart rate monitoring.”
iHealth Beat also summarized the study and reports differences among races also exist with “Asian-American Internet users … significantly more likely to engage in telehealth services than white, black or Hispanic residents.”