Image | WBJ Source: JAMA Internal Medicine
Massachusetts leads the nation in telehealth adoption, with rates of use varying widely by state.
December 16, 2020
Mass. leads nation in telehealth use
PHOTO | MATT WRIGHT
Dr. Larry Garber, an internist and medical director for informatics for Reliant Medical Group, talks with a patient through telehealth technology.
By Grant Welker
The coronavirus pandemic has forced a lot of health appointments to be either delayed or moved online. In Massachusetts, more patients are choosing to have appointments online than anywhere else in the country.
Nearly half of medical appointments in Massachusetts have taken place through telehealth, according to a sampling of such visits for a study published in November by JAMA Internal Medicine.
The rate of use in Massachusetts, at 47.6%, was easily enough to be highest in the country. Washington, D.C. was second at 43.1%, followed by Rhode Island at 40.6%. No one else was above 40%.
At the other end of the spectrum, just 8.4% of appointments have been through telehealth in South Dakota, and 10.4% in Tennessee.
Adoption of telehealth in Massachusetts and elsewhere still hasn't been enough to overcome major drops in medical appointments since the pandemic began, the study said. About two-thirds of the drop in medical appointments was made up by growth in telehealth, but health appointments were still down 28.5% in Massachusetts and at least 16% in every state.
"Although some deferred care may have represented discretionary care that could be postponed without harm, these results also substantiate concerns that patients may fall behind in chronic illness management or face complications from deferred acute medical issues," the study said. "This would be consistent with evidence from natural disasters resulting in decreased access to care associated with greater morbidity and mortality not directly related to the disaster itself."
The study's six authors included four researchers with Boston connections: Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
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