The New Normal of Care

What started as a pandemic necessity has become a permanent fixture of public health. Telemedicine utilization remains 38x higher than pre-COVID levels, stabilizing into a hybrid model that many experts say is "the first major efficiency gain in US healthcare in fifty years."

However, the shift is not without controversy. A panel at the Global Health Forum erupted into debate yesterday over the "Digital Divide," arguing that telemedicine exacerbates inequality for rural populations with poor broadband.

The Case for Hybrid Care

Dr. Sheila Evans, Chief of Digital Health at Mercy Hospital, argues that the "triage" model works. "80% of rashes, colds, and follow-ups do not need a physical room. By moving them to video, we free up physical resources for the critical 20% who really need them. Wait times for physical appointments have dropped by 15%."

The Privacy Frontier

The debate has also shifted to data privacy. With private companies like Amazon (One Medical) and CVS entering the primary care space, patient data is moving from siloed hospital servers to cloud environments adjacent to consumer profile data. Creating firewalls between "Health" and "Marketing" is the regulatory challenge of the decade.