Telehealth as a critical tool for improving population and community health

Rapid advances in telehealth technology and its adoption are making its applicability more salient to not only individual patient care, but to population and community health. A recent Institutes of Medicine report on the role of telehealth in an evolving health care environment emphasized the many ways in which we can harness telehealth technologies to expand the reach of scarce health resources and improve health outcomes. However, the adoption of telehealth and the diffusion of innovative technology into public health practice have been slow. During this session, participants will gain insight into how telehealth enables more effective systems of emergency/disaster preparedness and response; improves the management of chronic diseases; mitigates the impacts of provider shortages on access to care; increases the capacity of providers to delivery more timely care and health education; enhances the capacity of the public health workforce through training and education; and decreases disability and facilitates greater independence in the aging population. By the end of this session, participants will better understand how the effective use of telehealth allows us to transcend racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, organizational, geographic, cultural and linguistic barriers to care; thus making it a critical tool in the battle for eliminating health inequities and reduce health disparities.