Technology Meets Health Care: How Remote Monitoring and Telehealth Improve Care for All Patients

Dr. Jonathan Johnson:

I am Dr. Jonathan Johnson. I'm the head of Comprehensive Wound Care Services here in Washington, D.C. and I'm super excited to talk with you guys today, and looking forward to chatting about these questions.

Telehealth virtual medicine is the future. As we move through the consolidation of healthcare, one of the major aspects we need to make sure we continue to do is focus on access of care. So we have new digital wound apps, we have new digital telehealth platforms, and this combination of new technology, implemented into our wound care practice, is key to number one, how patients heal, and also increase access to care.

All wounds typically can have some type of digital assessment, whether that's pressure injuries, diabetic, venous, vascular, atypical, anything that we feel is difficult to treat, having signs and symptoms of infection or having chronic issues, we can utilize some type of digital format in order to assess them, send that information to a provider, whether it's a store-and-forward type of telemedicine platform, or it's a remote direct type of consultation with that specific provider, like a synchronous type of communication.

One of the major issues is increasing user experience for the patients. Because if providers understand how to use new technology, but the patients are a little bit behind or do not understand how to use that technology, there's an incomplete association and obviously we're not going to be able to provide great care. So all the new technology that's coming out, telemedicine based, wound care apps, digital formats, et cetera, need to make sure the patient engagement is as high as possible and easy to use. So user experience is going to be key moving forward.

Number one, user experience. And work with either insurance companies or larger organizations to provide some of these digital health and telemedicine platforms to number one, underserved areas and under-resourced areas, whether that's in the urban community or whether that is in the suburban community or the rural community. That's what telemedicine and that's what virtual care and digital health should be focusing on. Accessing care for patients that don't have the ability to get directly to a physician, whether that's a hospital, whether that's a clinic, whether that's a physician's office. So moving forward, technology has to continue to advance, focus on the patient experience, accessing care, and providing those resources to underserved communities, whether they're urban or rural.