Virtual care has its gaps - it’s time we talked about it

For this piece, we wanted to get a deeper industry perspective. So we teamed up with Omada Health CEO Sean Duffy. If you haven’t heard of Omada, it’s one of the OG digital health companies that started out in preventing diabetes and now works across diabetes, hypertension and more. So this analysis represents both of our views.

As an industry, we all talk a lot about virtual-first care. But let’s get real. Telemedicine and remote care have limits. There are times when it works extremely well. And there are times when the patient needs to be seen in person.

We all know that to be true on a deeper level. And yet, we wondered if there would be a way to actually quantify that. How much of our care services could be administered in a virtual setting and what type of treatment needs to stay brick and mortar? And how will that ratio change in the future - and why? As we move from hype to balance, we think that the real work lies ahead. Both ambulatory care managers and new digital entrants alike need to think through the right balance between virtual and in-person.