Various Clinical Cases Fail to Benefit from Telehealth

A new study from the University of Texas at Austin indicates that despite the fact that telehealth can help lower costs and reduce the need for emergency room (ER) visits, these benefits only apply to certain conditions.

Although telehealth use was growing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, its uptake during that period has made it an essential part of the healthcare delivery system. A general theme that emerges from research on telehealth is its ability to increase convenience, lower costs, and expand access to care.

However, researchers from the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin are alluding to the potential mixed benefits of telehealth.

“People believed that telehealth would be the next big thing, the future of health care,” said Indranil Bardhan, a professor of information, risk and operations management, in a press release. “But our research shows that its impact is not as straightforward as people might think. It’s more nuanced.”

The UT Austin team conducted research that involved the process virtualization theory, which substitutes physical encounters with telehealth. The researchers assessed visits at hospital-based outpatient clinics in Maryland between 2012 and 2021. It revealed that telehealth lowered the number of future outpatient visits within 30 days of a telehealth visit by about 14 percent. Regarding costs, it led to the saving of $239 in outpatient spending per patient.

But the study also shows that some specialties, like behavioral health, metabolic disorders, dermatology, and musculoskeletal issues, experienced benefits from telehealth, but others did not.

Circulatory, respiratory, and infectious diseases were among those that did not gain many benefits from telehealth. This was mainly because of the difficulty experienced when communicating and observing symptoms.

"Our research identifies the boundary conditions that determine the nuanced impact of telehealth on care utilization and shows that its effectiveness depends on the process virtualization potential of different diseases," the study authors wrote.

Thus, the main takeaway from this study is that telehealth should be used in clinical areas where it is most beneficial.

Among the benefits associated with telehealth, other research also indicates flaws.

Research from August 2022 showed that telehealth use led to more work for providers after hours, which could potentially result in clinician burnout.

In this study, researchers aimed to determine whether telehealth could improve the common issue of clinician burnout. They did this while considering work outside of work (WOW) as a primary measure and found that it was higher alongside telehealth use.

Further, telehealth adoption faces numerous barriers that can also hinder the benefits of using the care modality.

In June, the Virginia Telehealth Network released a report that detailed telehealth use among providers throughout the state in 2023.

The report noted that provider telehealth use was high, however, there were challenges. Factors such as interstate licensure and internet connectivity among patients required improvement.