According to a study in the Annals of Family Medicine, the total number of office visits to primary care physicians will increase from 462 million in 2008 to 565 million in 2025. This means we will need more primary care physicians to cover these visits—another 52,000 physicians. One way to address this looming physician shortage is telemedicine technology.

Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technologies to provide health care. The information exchanged via telemedicine enables specialists from all over the country—and the world—to treat people regardless of their location. It can be used to guide care for simple things like diagnosing and treating minor ailments, such as strep throat or an ear infection, and it can also be used to monitor injured workers or consult on complex injuries. This is especially important to people in rural and remote locations.

Not only does telemedicine provide convenient access to quality care, but it also does so in a cost-effective way. With telemedicine, injured workers can be monitored and treated from a local facility enabling them to forego expensive trips to distant centers of excellence.

A recent study by the Association of American Medical Colleges states that the healthcare system will need to take a multi-pronged approach to mitigating this physician shortage. Telemedicine is one way the medical community can continue to provide high-quality treatment to underserved populations in an efficient and cost-effective way. To learn more about telemedicine, listen to our webinar or subscribe to our YouTube Channel.