Why You Should Use Telehealth Services

In remote regions, healthcare isn't delayed. It's often out of reach entirely. But telehealth is changing that without building more hospitals Here’s how countries around the world are using it to reshape care: Rural and remote communities face brutal realities: 6-hour drives to see a doctor, no local specialists, understaffed hospitals. This isn't just inconvenient - it leads to avoidable deaths. Health systems aren't solving this with more buildings. They're using smarter connections. 6 ways telehealth is reshaping rural care: 1. Remote consultations - the most obvious one Western Australia: Telehealth saves patients ~600 km/appointment. India's eSanjeevani = 1M+ daily remote visits. Patients see specialists from home instead of chartering flights. 2. Emergency specialist access Small hospitals now tap urban expertise instantly. Queensland's tele-stroke network supports 41 regional hospitals. U.S: Telestroke has cut treatment delays by 30–50% in remote ERs. This improves survival and reduces transfers. 3. Chronic disease monitoring Patients share blood pressure, glucose, oxygen data digitally. New South Wales saw a 53% drop in hospital admissions. Rwanda scaled mobile hypertension tracking in rural zones. 4. Mental health reach In rural Australia, suicide rates are 66% higher than in cities. Video psychiatry now reaches isolated patients. Zimbabwe's Friendship Bench offers virtual mental health follow-ups in low-income areas. 5. Supporting rural doctors Project ECHO connects rural clinicians to urban specialists for case reviews and training. Used in over 40 countries, it reduces professional isolation and helps retain skilled staff. 6. Strengthening local hospitals When rural clinics manage more cases locally: • Fewer patient transfers • Better use of local beds • More sustainable budgets Australia's Telechemotherapy Program enables cancer treatment in 57 rural towns via remote oncologist oversight. Alaska's tele-emergency services helped 180+ villages avoid unnecessary medevacs. But challenges remain: weak internet, low digital literacy, uneven funding, outdated licensing policies. These must be addressed to scale success. The next frontier: • Offline-capable diagnostic tools • AI decision support for frontline workers • Shared care plans across systems • Culturally tailored tools for Indigenous communities Therefore, Telehealth isn't just a tech upgrade. It's modern community-based care that keeps patients local and removes barriers without moving people from where they live. The bottom line: Telehealth isn't a backup. For rural care, it's the foundation. The question isn't whether to scale it - it's how fast we can make it work for everyone. ↓ Thanks for reading! I'm Sam Armstrong, Founder of Kismet Healthcare. If you liked this, follow me for insights on healthcare innovation and building community-driven businesses.

As a physician-and-patient, I see the medical world from both sides of the white coat. As we celebrate the end of the year, so many healthcare innovations stand out to me-- including 3D printing, AI/machine learning, gene editing, and ... of course telemedicine. With telemedicine, there’s less hassle for our patients’ basic clinic visits – no more travel, parking fees, or staring at walls in waiting rooms. Quality care comes to each person in their living room. But it's not just about convenience. Telemedicine is bridging geographical gaps & bringing essential specialist care to underserved areas. For example, Equum Medical recently partnered with a rural hospital to provide remote nephrology services, making dialysis accessible locally. This means patients can receive their treatments closer to home-- surrounded by their own support network-- without getting transferred out. 🚑 Tele has the potential to ease the burden on patients and their families. It can also help alleviate the strain on hospitals and healthcare workers, esp in areas facing staff shortages. I'm inspired by what's ahead in medicine, telemedicine, and beyond. It means a lot to me, as someone who is on “both sides." What is everyone else looking forward to in 2025? #medtech #womeninmedicine #telemedicine

🏆 This is hand's down of my favorite telehealth stories. It was in rural Australia where a 44-year-old nurse recognized that he was having an inferior STEMI. The ER he was working in was hours away from the nearest catheterization lab (for the time-sensitive, lifesaving procedure needed for this type of heart attack). 🥷 But he had access to a remote emergency telehealth team and he did a bunch of Mission-Impossible-style self treatment: He placed his own IV, administered thrombolytic medications, and prepped for defibrillation. He was able to resolve his EKG changes and symptoms. He was eventually airlifted to Perth and survived. This kind of story might sound extraordinary. But with the right systems in place, it's becoming increasingly common. 😊 It is also *such* an Emergency Medicine clinician story. What made it possible wasn’t just technology. It was a telehealth program that was thoughtfully designed, clinically sound, and ready to reach patients in real time. There is value in giving guidance over telehealth both in the moment and for education. The conversation around telehealth tends to fluctuate between access and convenience. Those are great but it is also necessary to talk about the outcomes. And creating operations that ensure that the access meets good patient outcomes. The takeaway for those building or improving telehealth programs is this: success depends on more than software. It’s about training teams, building workflows, preparing protocols, and ensuring patients know there’s care waiting for them on the other side of the screen. During COVID, some health systems were able to move quickly not because they were lucky, but because they had prepared. Jefferson Health, where I ran a telemedicine program, was one of those. We all believed in telehealth before it was urgent. That foresight is something we can all learn from. A few lessons worth emphasizing: 📍 Telehealth should be a core part of care delivery rather than an afterthought. 📍 Strong clinical workflows are what make digital tools effective in practice. 📍 Training can ensure we can use virtual care to a higher level than imagined. This is a great example 📍 Trust is built over time through access, quality, and consistency and is what keeps patients engaged. And saves their lives. For many people, telehealth isn’t a convenience. It’s their only path to care. When we build systems that reflect that reality, the impact goes far beyond the screen. Let me know how you have done this! Link to the case study: https://lnkd.in/enV2-yEi #telehealthsuccess #digitalhealth #emergencymedicine

Forget what you know about psychotherapy. It's changing. And that's a good thing. Researchers from Ohio State University just published a paper demonstrating that telehealth-based brief cognitive behavioral therapy (bCBT) was effective in reducing suicide attempts among adults. They took about 100 people with suicidal thoughts and split them into 2 groups. One group received a 12-week course of bCBT and the other group received a 12-week course of present-centered therapy (PCT). All delivered over video. Both groups were followed for a year. People receiving bCBT were 41% less likely to attempt suicide. This finding is remarkable for a few reasons: 1. This was a telehealth study. 2. bCBT was tested against an active intervention. 3. The intervention only lasted 12 weeks. 4. Positive effects lasted a year. Here's what this means for mental health treatments in general: 1. Telehealth research is growing and supporting its use. 2. Telehealth is effective in high-risk patients. 3. Psychotherapy doesn't have to last forever. As the use of telehealth grows and the length of psychotherapy treatments shrink, more patients will get access to quality care. Studies like these give me hope. You should read about single-session interventions (SSI) if this study doesn't impress you. We mental health clinicians need to pivot and embrace new technologies and new treatment manuals if we're going to be a part of the solution.

In 2 days, Medicare’s expanded telehealth flexibilities are scheduled to expire, potentially changing how many beneficiaries access virtual care at home. Beginning January 31, 2026, most Medicare patients will once again need to be physically present in a medical facility to receive covered telehealth services, with limited exceptions such as audio-only behavioral health visits. Here’s how I’m thinking about it: I understand why these flexibilities were introduced as a temporary response to the pandemic and its immediate aftermath. They were never intended to be permanent policies. However, what they revealed shouldn’t be ignored. 1) COVID didn’t just force rapid adoption of virtual care -> it permanently changed patient behavior. People learned what convenience, continuity, and timely access actually feel like in healthcare. And once patients experience that, the expectation doesn’t disappear simply because a public health emergency ends. 2) When virtual options are removed or constrained, proactive care doesn’t magically reappear in brick-and-mortar settings. Instead, we see overcrowded health systems, longer wait times, missed annual visits, and breakdowns in continuity of care, especially for patients who already struggle with scheduling, transportation, or workforce availability. Missed annual visits increase the likelihood of delayed diagnoses, unmanaged chronic conditions, and higher-acuity care showing up later and more expensively. That’s why I don’t see telehealth as something that should be treated as an all-or-nothing policy decision. OpenLoop’s growth reflects sustained demand for care models that meet patients where they are. I’ve seen firsthand that when virtual care is thoughtfully integrated into the broader healthcare ecosystem, it can expand access, support providers, and improve outcomes. My hope is that this moment becomes an opportunity for policymakers to modernize virtual care, preserving access while building durable, integrated models that reflect how millions of patients engage with healthcare today.

"Why don't you provide text therapy at Hibiscus Counselling ?" My husband, Rajkumar K R , asked me this recently. It turned into a debate that completely forced me to rethink my own conditioning. For years, my psychology curriculum drilled one absolute truth into my head: in person therapy is the undisputed gold standard. We were taught that phone and text based therapy are, at best, inefficient, and at worst, complete scams. I was explaining this to Raj, breaking down exactly why text therapy is ineffective. I talked about missing body language, the lack of micro expressions, and the difficulty of holding clinical containment. He listened, and then he said something that stopped me in my tracks. "When I really need to talk to someone, and I am in a space where I physically cannot speak aloud or be on video, I would rather a therapist text me than turn me away because I am not in a clinic. When you are drowning, 10 percent help is better than zero percent help." That hit me hard. It made me realize how much of our clinical gold standard is actually just rooted in profound privilege. Attending in person therapy is a massive privilege. It requires the financial ability to commute, the flexibility to take an hour off work in the middle of the day, and the luxury of childcare. Even taking a video call is a privilege. It requires a safe, private room with a locked door. It requires high speed internet. It requires an environment where you are certain you will not be overheard by abusive, intrusive, or judgmental family members. The data actively supports Raj's perspective. Research consistently shows that telehealth interventions and asynchronous text therapy significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. For marginalized populations, domestic abuse survivors, and individuals in severe distress who cannot safely verbalize their trauma, text therapy is not a scam. It is a lifeline. It breaches the barrier of geographical care deserts and severe social anxiety. With the global mental health crisis accelerating at the rate it is, we cannot afford to be clinical purists. As practitioners and institutions, we need to sit down and honestly evaluate our clinical biases. We have to ask ourselves a very uncomfortable question. By demanding that clients only heal on our terms and in our preferred modalities, are we actually protecting clinical efficacy, or are we just protecting clinical elitism?

As Congress returns to Washington, D.C., for another shutdown show down, there is one critical access-to-care policy that I’ll be watching particularly closely. Medicare’s expanded support and common-sense payments for telehealth are set to expire, along with the current Congressional budget.   Westchester Medical Center Health Network has the privilege of caring for patients from over 6,200 square miles of the Hudson Valley. Many of these miles reach into majestic mountain ranges and vibrant rural communities of New York State. One of our hospitals - Margaretville Memorial Hospital - has the distinction of being classified as a rural Critical Access Hospital serving the Catskills community. While I’m sure we’ve all enjoyed the convenience and comfort of telehealth, and it doesn’t make sense to walk this progress back for anyone, the stakes are higher for some. Our Medicare patients in far-reaching areas have come to depend on telehealth services expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, accessing care directly from their homes. Unless Congress acts, Medicare recipients will no longer have the same broad access to this lifeline in rural communities. Some are proposing band aid solutions that just extend telehealth payments for six months or a couple of years. Medicare recipients in rural areas shouldn’t have to wonder about their healthcare access each year as Congress puts together a budget. There is no sense in giving $50B through the rural health fund while simultaneously taking away telehealth funding. Telehealth brings care closer to home, keeps contagious germs out of clinics and hospitals, and can head off expensive and unnecessary emergency room visits. Telehealth saves lives.    When something makes this much sense, you just do it. https://lnkd.in/g8vtNqxT

Until relatively recently, it was an open question whether or not therapy provided by telehealth was as effective as in-person therapy - but not anymore! With 46% of our clients at Stop Soldier Suicide reporting that we helped prevent a suicide attempt with our telehealth efforts, we can see from our own work that we’re on the right track. But we’re not the only ones who understand the benefits of telehealth. A recent clinical trial from researchers out of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Ohio State University on the benefits of telehealth validates our work, as it demonstrates similar findings. This clinical trial evaluated the effectiveness of Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention (BCBT-SP) delivered via telehealth among adults with recent suicidal ideation or behavior. To conduct this study, researchers randomly assigned 96 adults to receive either BCBT-SP or PCT (Present-Centered Therapy) over 12 months, delivered via telehealth. What they found: BOTH groups showed reduced suicidal ideation severity, with no significant differences between them. But very importantly, participants receiving BCBT-SP also experienced significantly fewer suicide attempts (41% reduced risk compared to PCT). The heartening conclusion? BCBT-SP through telehealth effectively reduces suicide attempts in high-risk adults. Why is this important? Because it’s hard to get to therapy sometimes, both logistically (think childcare, cost of gasoline) and emotionally (think about the stigma that still exists about going to see a counselor) - so, if seeing a therapist over telehealth is just as effective, then this means we can save lives even more easily. We’re thrilled to see findings like these, which indicate to us that our methods for supporting veterans who are experiencing suicidality are effective…and meeting our clients where they want to see us - from the comfort of their own homes. #telehealth #telementalhealth #suicideprevention #veteransuicide Craig Bryan