How the Telehealth Boom Is Changing Physician Training

Prior to the pandemic, training on telehealth was limited. That made sense very few physician-patient interactions took place outside of an office. Now that has changed, and educators are working on a response. “Before COVID, nationally, telehealth was used for about less than 1% of total encounters in volume,” said Vimal Mishra, MD, medical director of telehealth and informatics at Virginia Commonwealth University Health (VCU). “If you think about this and then boom, mid-March you're seeing about 60 to 70% of the visits delivered through telehealth. And of course, there's been a lot of challenges.”

One principal challenge has been that physicians are not skilled enough in telehealth to work with medical students and residents. “A lot of people focus on ‘How do I use telehealth technology?’ but the real question is ‘How do I integrate it into my practice?’” said Richard Van Eck, MA, PhD, associate dean for teaching and learning at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences, one of 37 member schools of the AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium.