Video Visits To Jump To 158 Million By 2020

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

A Tractica report finds telehealth consultations via video will increase from 19.7 million last year to 158.4 million by 2020.

Video visits to the doctor numbered less than 20 million in 2014. By the year 2020, that number will increase to more than 158 million per year. According to a study conducted by Tractica, non-clinical video consultations will outnumber clinical consultations by 2019.

MobiHealth News reports clinical consultations include those in clinical settings such as hospitals and medical clinics, and use cases of clinical telehealth video consultations include telestroke and teleICU, psychiatry, and specialized medicine like dermatology, radiology, obstetrics, cardiology, and oncology. Non-clinical video applications are to include routine care, urgent care, chronic condition management, follow-up care, and emergency response.

“Telehealth video consultations lend themselves to a wide variety of medical treatments and use cases,” says principal analyst Charul Vyas in a press release. “The flexibility and efficiency of video conferencing is helping healthcare providers and payers to achieve tangible value in deploying video-based patient monitoring solutions, both in terms of positive patient outcomes and cost savings.

“However, the market still faces a variety of challenges, including the high initial cost of deploying services, inconsistent reimbursement models for telehealth consultations, and some continuing resistance by physicians, patients, and regulatory bodies.”

This is good news for providers, who as Health IT Outcomes reported last year, could save time and streamline workflow by using virtual visits. “On average, patients spent 8.31 minutes completing the questionnaire and physicians spent an average of 3.62 minutes reviewing each patient's responses and making recommendations. Follow-up surveys found high satisfaction levels for both patients and physicians,” explained the article.