Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1462307
TELEHE A LTH I S NOT a new concept; in fact, home-based health care dates back more than a century. In 1879, an article in Lancet suggested that the telephone could be used as a tool to reduce in-office visits. Thanks to ever-evolving technology, telehealth options have grown exponentially in recent years. Now, televisits conducted by video and email have become common, and advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly changing the landscape of medicine. Yet many physicians have not yet fully embraced the idea of telehealth. In a survey conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 2016 and again in 2019, the number of physicians using telehealth visits and remote monitoring had doubled, yet still only 28% of physicians had adopted these practices. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed these statistics and opened the door further to the future of telehealth. Meg Barron, Vice President of Digital Innovation for the AMA, estimates that up to 90% of physicians are now using some sort of telehealth service, with many of them trying it for the first time. The pandemic has also illustrated the innate need for virtual healthcare options in circumstances when the health of patients and providers is at risk. The good news is that with more physicians taking advantage of telehealth services, the door is opening to a future where the benefits of telehealth augmented by AI can have a lasting impact on the healthcare system. AI, of course, takes telehealth a step further by automating some decision-making capabilities (such as when an EMR suggests a list of tests a patient might need) or adding data support to a physician's deliberations (as in software-assisted diagnostic tools). In a 2020 JAMIA Open article titled "Evaluating Artificial Intel ligence in Medicine: Pha ses of Clinica l Resea rch," researchers define AI in health care as "AI-based software that informs or influences clinical or administrative decisions and can affect health or healthcare delivery." In effect, AI can impact everything from taking a patient's health history to diagnosing diseases and monitoring and managing chronic health conditions. VIRTUAL ASSESSMENTS AI technolog y can simplify the process of taking a patient's health history, which can in turn assist a physician in making a definitive diagnosis, according to an article in the 2019 Yearbook of Medical Informatics. "AI can make history taking easier by providing prompts to the process and clues to the diagnosis, and also asking the right next set of questions based on the answer, saving the clinician time," the authors note. "For example, a person suffering long-term with chronic, dull aching pain in the upper abdomen BY ELESA SWIRGSDIN Telehealth: Tools of Today & Tomorrow ADVANCES IN TELEHE ALTH AND AI, ALONG WITH INCRE A SED ACCEPTANCE BY PHYSICIANS, CAN LE AD TO BRE AK THROUGHS IN VIRTUAL HE ALTH CARE. 2 6❱❱❱❱❱ N A T I O N A L F E A T U R E