More evidence of telemedicine’s leap
Other U.S. sites that follow patients with type 2 diabetes have recently reported similar findings, albeit on a much more localized level.
At Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., telemedicine consultations for patients with diabetes or other endocrinology disorders spurted from essentially none prior to March 2020 to a peak of nearly 700 visits/week in early May 2020, and then maintained a rate of roughly 500 telemedicine consultations weekly through the end of 2020, said Michelle L. Griffth, MD, during a talk at the 2021 annual ADA scientific sessions.
“We’ve made telehealth a permanent part of our practice,” said Dr. Griffith, medical director of telehealth ambulatory services at Vanderbilt. “We can use this boom in telehealth as a catalyst for diabetes-practice evolution,” she suggested.
It was a similar story at Scripps Health in southern California. During March and April 2020, video telemedicine consultations jumped from a prior rate of about 60/month to about 13,000/week, and then settled back to a monthly rate of about 25,000-30,000 during the balance of 2020, said Athena Philis-Tsimikas, MD, an endocrinologist and vice president of the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute in La Jolla, Calif. (These numbers include all telehealth consultations for patients at Scripps, not just patients with diabetes.)
“COVID sped up the process of integrating digital technology into health care,” concluded Dr. Philis-Tsimikas. A big factor driving this transition was the decision of many insurers to reimburse for telemedicine visits, something not done prepandemic.
The study received no commercial support. Dr. Patel, Dr. Mehrotra, Dr. Griffith, Dr. Philis-Tsimikas, and Dr. Gabbay reported no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.