What Does 2021 Hold for Virtual Care⁠↗

At the same time, there are caveats to fulfilling the promise of virtual care, including a murky regulatory environment and a knee-jerk reaction to simply bringing a broken system online.

Just as the pandemic has done across nearly all industries, we are actively redefining what “work” looks like for clinicians. Virtual care will offer clinicians the freedom and flexibility they deserve to work across multiple providers and organizations — especially now that we are recognizing that limiting clinicians within a single organization inhibits their ability to expand access to care. Simply put, part-time vs full-time is now an outdated concept.

But in order to make this work, let’s provide clinicians better tools and products so they can focus on what they do best. Telemedicine v1 did not remove the tech burden for clinicians, and they are long overdue for a better and easier experience.

The shift towards virtual care provides an opportunity to introduce a new standard of care that actively reimagines how to practice medicine while also tuning out the noise of bureaucracy and politics. By offering a wider set of tools to treat and diagnose patients, clinicians have the opportunity to offer a truly holistic experience that encourages patient compliance, data tracking, and a more personalized touch.

Patients with early diagnoses will have treatment options that do not require hospitalizations (IV antivirals, convalescent plasma, monoclonal antibodies). In addition to early identification and treatment, they’ll be able to recover at home with remote monitoring and clinical oversight — which will ideally keep patients out of ICUs, decreasing spread, and decreasing mortality.