Becker's Healthcare August 30, 2021
Small hospitals are least likely to have telemedicine, though they’re also the ones that would benefit most from it, two physicians and a researcher at Boston-based Harvard Medical School argued in an opinion published Aug. 27 in JAMA Health Forum.
The authors say small rural hospitals often transfer their emergency department patients to urban specialty care centers, complicating the care journey and potentially costing lives. The authors offer telemedicine as a multi-pronged solution: it allows patients to receive care closer to home, prevents care inequities, helps small hospitals retain their patients and can improve hospitals’ finances.
Telemedicine is rare among small hospitals,...