During the pandemic, they were heroes, but now, it seems, they're expendable.
In what is becoming a common pattern in the health care industry, Oregon Health & Science University on Tuesday (July 2) cut its telehealth nursing unit, which opened in March 2020 and was once advertised on the university's website as a service to people across the state.
It's a microcosm of how consumers are changing how they access healthcare in the post-pandemic, connected economy, as telehealth trends wane and are replaced by AI and other virtual technologies, while in-person doctor visits make a comeback.
“I think the simplest way to describe what we're seeing right now is that we're seeing the decline of telehealth 1.0,” Robin Glass, president of virtual care and health navigation company Include Health, told Fierce Healthcare.
“This original model, which was born out of a very transactional interaction between patient and physician, and which I think has no longitudinal care or holistic patient component, I think we're beginning to see the end of that model. It's not serving patients as well as it should,” Glass added. “And I don't think it reflects the modern experience that consumers are accustomed to in every aspect of their lives. And at the end of the day, it's not delivering the value that buyers want from their healthcare dollars.”
These sentiments are apparent in the market, but not everyone agrees with Glass.
Telemedicine as a business model has certainly taken a step back: Amazon's pay-per-visit telehealth service and One Medical program are now under a single brand, after the company announced on Thursday that it was renaming it Amazon One Medical Pay-per-visit.
While Amazon didn't specifically blame the decline in telehealth visits, Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said “impersonal care” makes it harder for patients to monetize the service.
Walmart cited a similar reason when it shut down its telehealth business on April 30.
But showing that not everyone has given up on the business model and its future, Walmart sold the division to healthcare technology startup Fabric.
Fabric, which rebranded from Florence and emerged from stealth in early 2023, has developed technology to automate clinical and administrative tasks in healthcare. The acquisition will significantly increase Fabric's presence in the employer market. Walmart's MeMD division has provided virtual care services to 30,000 employers and 5 million employees, including large corporations, brokers, third-party administrators and distributors.
Fabric provides a telehealth platform for health systems, employers and payers with a suite of products designed to streamline workflows for in-person and virtual patient visits. These products range from patient intake to self-scheduling to provider documentation tools, and leverage conversational AI to improve both provider and patient experiences and drive operational efficiencies, according to company executives.
Technology solutions like those being developed by Fabric, which also incorporate AI and virtual reality, are likely to define the future of telehealth. Fabric is described as “a care enablement system that uses AI-powered clinical intelligence and automation to triage patients based on time of day, availability, distance, and propensity to direct them to the most appropriate point of care, while streamlining treatment across virtual and in-person workflows.” This hybrid approach leaves room for consumer choice and technology innovation.
One innovation expected to garner attention is holograms. Crescent Regional Hospital near Dallas has introduced an innovative technology called the “Holobox,” a 3D system that projects a life-size hologram of a doctor for real-time consultations. Developed by Dutch company Holoconnects, the 86-inch-tall device requires only electricity and an internet connection.
The Holobox features anti-reflective glass, a transparent LCD screen, Hi-Fi speakers, a multi-touch operating system, and the ability to display pre-recorded and live doctor videos for improved patient engagement.
In an interview with a local Dallas TV station, Steve Sterling, Holoconnects' managing director for North America, highlighted the system's ability to revolutionize patient-doctor interactions by providing real-time access to specialists and saving doctors valuable time.
Crescent Regional Hospital is the first hospital in the U.S. to adopt the technology and plans to expand its deployment to rural and underserved areas. Holoconnects aims to introduce a smaller, portable version to expand its reach.
