Healthcare Design - April 2021 - 34

Advocate Aurora Health wasn't alone in scaling up telemedicine offerings to fill the gap between patient need and limited appointments
available for in-person care. According to the " COVID -19 Consumer
Survey, " released in May 2020 by McKinsey & Company, a U.S.-based
worldwide management consulting firm, health systems, independent practices, and others reported seeing 50-175 times the number
of patients via telehealth than they did before (telehealth is generally defined as a broader term for the technologies and services used
to support remote healthcare and services). Consumer adoption also
jumped, from 11 percent of U.S. consumers using telehealth in 2019 to
46 percent using it to replace canceled healthcare visits, according to
the report. Houston Methodist, which includes a network of eight hospitals serving the Greater Houston area and 180 clinic locations, saw
telemedicine visits grow from 115 to 15,500 a month from February to
March 2020, with volume doubling again by April 2020, says Dr. Sarah
Pletcher, vice president and executive medical director of virtual care
at Houston Methodist.
Now, as the country eagerly awaits a return to " normal " in many
aspects, design professionals and healthcare organizations say they
don't anticipate telemedicine practices will return to pre-pandemic
levels. " Telehealth is going to continue to grow-probably not as much
as it did last year, but it certainly is an accepted platform now by patients, " Nelson says. " It's a new world. "

tients. In HGA's new " Impact of Telemedicine on Outpatient Care, Insights from HGA's
2020 Exploratory Study, " the firm cited an
April 2020 online survey by The Harris Poll
that shows 82 percent of U.S. consumers
who've utilized telehealth services reported
having positive feelings about using it or the
idea of using telemedicine services, while
80 percent said they were likely to seek the
services post-COVID-19.
All these factors-from changing regulations to broader consumer acceptance-are
making it easier for design professionals to

PROVIDING A LIFELINE

In the beginning of the pandemic, telemedicine was primarily used
to screen patients to ensure those coming to the hospital absolutely
needed to be there. This not only helped hospitals from being overwhelmed but supported efforts to keep staff and patients safe and
maintain robust supply levels, especially for personal protective
equipment (PPE).
The U.S. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES)
Act, which included emergency polices that improved provider payments for telehealth and allowed for providers to deliver care across
state lines, helped fuel greater adoption. " There's been interest in telemedicine for some time but what was holding a lot of clients back was
the payment structure, because they weren't getting paid as highly for
telemedicine visits as they were for in-person visits, " says Amy Douma,
design principal and architect with HGA (Minneapolis). When restrictions were relaxed last spring, telemedicine became a more financially
viable option, she says. " During the lockdowns, particularly, there was
a huge spike in telemedicine use. It's been tapering downward since
then as things have become a bit more normalized, but its use is still
considerably higher than it was pre-COVID-19, " she says.
As the year progressed, and many patients were still reluctant to visit
a health facility for fear of contracting the virus, many healthcare providers expanded telemedicine services to include primary and specialty care platforms, such as mental health or physical therapy, improving
care access to patient populations that may have never considered a
virtual visit.
The new types of uses and deployment not only resulted in expanding access but also broadening acceptance of the model among pa-

APRIL 2021

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Healthcare Design - April 2021

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