LockedBrands

Incredible Development within the Healthcare Industry: The Rise of Telehealth and Expansion of Care Options

employee @ LockedBrands

Published on Dec 7, 2020

COVID-19 has changed the outlook for telehealth, according to this report from McKinsey & Company, which you can find here. 3 major shifts have happened to consumer, provider, and regulatory changes that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The McKinsey report is based on consumer and physician surveys conducted from April-May 2020 along with the Medicare telemedicine health care provider fact sheet from March 2020 by the Center of Medicare & Medicaid Services. The McKinsey report offers indications that a major shift in the healthcare industry is upon us, which is expanding access to healthcare visits and options.

In our latest webinar, (which you can find here), Justin explains the recent expansion of telehealth and remote patient monitoring due to the pandemic. He breaks this topic down into easily digestible information and offers thorough explanations of the changes, their impact, and the opportunities it opens for a more efficient healthcare space for the patients and providers.

The McKinsey Report highlights the 3 major areas of change: patients, providers and regulations. Due to COVID-19, majority "(70%) of in-person healthcare visits were cancelled to avoid exposure and led to increase usage of telehealth appointments. 76% of survey respondents indicated that they were highly or moderately likely to use telehealth options again. 74% of telehealth users reported high satisfactions”, also. 

From a provider perspective, there has been an increase in alternative healthcare options usage this year, “Healthcare systems, independent practices, behavioral health providers, and other rapidly scaled telehealth offerings to fill the gap between need and cancelled in-person care, reported a 50-175x the number of telehealth visits pre-COVID.” Additionally, 57% of physician respondents view telehealth more favorably than they did pre-COVID and 64% are more comfortable using it. Finally, the major change that allowed for an increase in telehealth visits was due to the “Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services temporarily approving 80 new services, lifting restrictions on originating sites, and allowing for other regulatory flexibilities to increase access to virtual healthcare.” The McKinsey report concludes that the time to act is now if we want to modernize the care delivery system. It also suggests that with “the acceleration of consumer and provider adoption of telehealth and extension of telehealth beyond virtual urgent care, up to $250 billion of current US healthcare spend could potentially be virtualized.”


So why are we excited about this development? Because of our device, The Secure Med Manager, a portable lockbox device, for securing and managing the dispensing of prescription medicine. The Secure Med Manager is a small, relatively low cost, household device. So it's to be used in the house wherever the patient is, or in the care facility. The Secure Med Manager is a medical device on track to fill the gaps developing from the new advances in telehealth for 2 major reasons, 1) for securing and managing the prescriptions and 2) it serves as a hub for remote patient monitoring. With an increase in patient satisfaction, provider comfortability, and new regulatory changes to expand access, the Secure Med Manager is perfectly poised to enhance the new systems developing. It serves as the “middle-man” between the patient and provider to ensure accountability with care regimen through its nearly real-time data collection and feedback.

These changes in the healthcare industry are exciting as they increase the quality of healthcare to many Americans. Invest in LockedBrands to support the development of the Secure Med Manager and a more efficient care delivery system in America!