Before COVID-19, telemedicine was practiced by many health systems, but seeing patients in person was still the norm.
Within a few short weeks in March 2020, health systems and practices were forced to adopt new ways of seeing patients and delivering care.
Although face-to-face visits will always be a part of health care, thereâs no going back, providers say.Â
There are still obstacles that need to be overcome â especially when it comes to insurance coverage and access.
Nevertheless, the pandemic is spurring advances in delivery of patient care that might otherwise have taken years to develop.
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âPre-COVID, we were interested in making telehealth part of our five-year plan,â said Dr. Christopher Davis, UCHealth emergency medicine physician and medical director of virtual health. âThat was critical when COVID hit in March, because we had infrastructure in place that we could rapidly scale rather than building from scratch.â
A new COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial is starting in Colorado.
Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and UCHealth on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus are recruiting potential study participants for the COVID-19 investigational vaccine clinical trial. This is the third COVID-19 vaccine trial underway at UCHealth locations.
The recruitment period will run about two months at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital which is the only hospital in Colorado participating in this clinical trial.
The investigational vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, which contains a protein antigen and the companyâs Matrix-M adjuvant, is being evaluated in a phase 3 clinical trial sponsored by Novavax and supported by the National Institutes of Health.Â