Perspective: What a Difference a Disaster Makes: The Telehealth Revolution in the Age of COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Despite the existence of telemedicine since the late 1950s and early 1960s, it took a pandemic to bring this technology mainstream. The critical urgency of the pandemic drove an auspicious alignment of policy, economics, and technology to facilitate the widespread implementation of telehealth. It is imperative that this synchronicity be maintained in the post-COVID era in order to optimize our health care system to be ready for the next threat to the health of the United States.