By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Jamey Edwards, CEO of one of the larger in-hospital B2B telehealth startups in the US, Cloudbreak Health, is already seeing changes in the way hospitals are using his company’s telemedicine services in the wake of COVID-19.

From a noted rise in the rate of infectious disease consults, to “quarantine rooms” where telemedicine equipment is cleverly deployed to practice “clinical distancing” to minimize risk to front-line healthcare workers (and also preserve PPE), Jamey talks about what he’s seeing among hospital clinicians and what they seem to need most right now from telehealth providers amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

With changes to licensing regulations, HIPAA policies, and reimbursement changing the very infrastructure around telehealth, will we finally see virtual care become a true part of the healthcare system at-scale?

“One of the hardest things to do in our healthcare system is match cost to acuity,” says Jamey. “I’m not going to say we’ve overvalued the in-person encounter, but we certainly have been very hesitant to step away from it.”

“The fact of the matter is that that’s a bias. And so it’s up to us to look at these biases and say, ‘Well, no. What is the right way to do this?’”