Telehealth has proved a boon during the pandemic, when it has helped physicians continue to treat patients and keep everyone safe. But while the technology offers many benefits and should have a permanent place in medicine, it cannot and should not replace in-person patient-doctor visits. Those visits engender trust. Equally important, they allow a physician to detect problems — a lymph node too firm, a spleen or liver too large, or an unexpected prostate nodule (with a normal PSA) — that could never be detected in a Zoom visit.
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Telehealth use has surged during the coronavirus pandemic, with the technology spreading far and fast. Doctors and patients alike must be wondering if this is the beginning of a whole new kind of doctor–patient relationship, one that might totally transform our health care system.
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