Note from the Editors
Digital technologies have transformed almost every aspect of the health care and life sciences industry from electronic health records and telemedicine, to diagnostics and therapeutics augmented by artificial intelligence, and to remote clinical trials. The year 2020 witnessed the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzing unprecedented levels of digital health innovation and adoption. The digital health industry is entering 2021 with optimism for even greater advancement, reductions in regulatory burdens, and continued widespread adoption of digital health technologies. In the Industry Insights contribution for this issue, several of our digital health experts briefly summarize the major advancements in four key digital health areas that took place over 2020, as well as expectations for 2021.
Significant disparities found in telehealth use, especially among older patients Inequities were found by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, and when someone used a language other than English.
, Associate Editor
After COVID-19, one of the terms most people will remember best from 2020 is likely to be social distancing. While it most commonly applies to social gatherings with family and friends, it has impacted the way many receive medical care. Historically, the U.S. has been relatively slow to broadly adopt telehealth, largely emphasizing in-person visits.
But the coronavirus pandemic, especially in the spring of 2020, necessitated increased use of virtual or phone call visits, even prompting the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to relax some of its regulations, primarily for video-based telehealth. These large-scale changes made virtual care exponentially more popular than it had been even at the start of the calendar year.
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