Telemedicine is becoming standard practice for many healthcare providers. According to Dr. David Ernst, president of telemedicine innovator EPOWERdoc, these solutions will transform access to care and continue to drive more cost-effective delivery models, particularly at the EMS and emergency medicine level.

Until recently, telemedicine has suffered from significant usability limitations for providers. Typical set-ups require that providers toggle between separate software programs to review and enter patient data for a single encounter, introducing errors — a frustration for both patients and providers. There is hope, however: telemedicine technology is making rapid improvements through purpose-built platforms.

Advanced telemedicine systems are solving pain points by collapsing all functionality into a single, seamless platform. In addition, a single-platform approach simplifies the patient experience and helps overcome barriers to healthcare, such as remote location or limited mobility, and promotes continuity of care between providers.

As telemedicine solutions mature, increasing adoption rates by both providers and patients will expand areas of utilization. Adoption will be further accelerated by telemedicine technology’s ability to integrate with different systems used in hospitals, clinics, and by EMS agencies.

In a recently published article, we explored in detail three emergency medicine use cases that illustrate the advantages of an integrated telemedicine platform and the factors most likely to propel widespread provider adoption.

Read the full article to learn more about how the latest telemedicine technology can improve access to care and drive down the number of avoidable EMS transport and ED visits which cost the U.S. healthcare system billions of dollars each year.