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Tele-Medicine: The Future of Healthcare Technology

By Rasha Almulaiki

The pandemic greatly altered our way of life from affecting everything from the economy, society and the healthcare system. The COVID-19 crisis presented the U.S. healthcare system with unprecedented challenges that transformed the delivery of care to an accelerated reliance of virtual care in the form of telehealth and telemedicine.

“Henry Ford Health has been very committed to trying to ensure that as we advance the quality of care, the different innovations of technology and elsewhere, that we keep an eye towards ensuring equity,” said Dr. Denise Perkins-White M.D., PhD, vice chair of academic affairs, department of family medicine and director, healthcare equity initiatives at Henry Ford Health.

“That means we want to make sure we’re not leaving any segment of our population or community behind and trying to do everything we can to ensure that everyone is going to be able to take advantage of these innovations.”

Across the country, many health systems used telemedicine, although at low rates of usage, for regular care before the pandemic compared to traditional in-person visits. Even health systems with a reasonably high telehealth implementation rate had less than 100 video visits made per day. Today, many in-person clinic appointments have been replaced with video or telephone calls and see an average of more than 600 patients every day through video.

From 2019 to 2020, virtual care interactions at Henry Ford Health (HFH) surged by 1,500 percent and are still much higher than pre-2020 usage. Despite the continued high utilization of telehealth services for many patients, White-Perkins said her research found that relatively few patients using telehealth/telemedicine or virtual care interactions are beyond the age of 65. Most older adults preferred to opt for phone calls with health care providers, rather than video.

Researchers are studying the hurdles older persons have while utilizing telehealth in a second grant-funded research project, as well as potential interventions to improve uptake and ways to deliver treatment more efficiently.

Perkins-White said the programs are informed by feedback provided from senior resource community groups and working with community partners.

“We conducted surveys to understand do people have access to the equipment, access to high speed internet that’s needed. Do they feel comfortable using it? And do they have the support they need to use it?” said Perkins-White. “We found there were significant barriers which also align with what the research has been telling us. We now have to look at what we can do as healthcare teams to make it easier.”

Dr. Perkins-White and her team are concentrating on training programs to better prepare medical professionals to use telemedicine with seniors and allow them opportunities to teach each other.

At HFH, Michigan-based patients can access the MyCare On-Demand Virtual Care service through the MyChart elec-

See TELE-MEDICINE page A-4