I am personally very enthusiastic about the future of telemedicine and believe that it will account for a relatively large share of patient visits in upcoming years. However, often missing in the telemedicine literature thus far has the identification of key target audiences for the service but a recent article now seems to fill this void (see: Telemedicine apps are thriving because working moms love the convenience of their smartphones). It should have been obvious from the outset -- telemedicine is perfect for working moms seeking pediatric care for their children. Below is an excerpt from the article:
Telemedicine, as this burgeoning practice is known, is gaining particular traction with working mothers...who are juggling child care with a full-time job and struggle to find time to go to the doctor unless it’s truly an emergency.....Many such services are covered by employers or health plans. CNBC spoke with executives at American Well as well as telemedicine providers Teladoc, MDLIVE and Doctor on Demand. They all said they rely heavily on mothers to use the service and to spread the word. According to Global Market Insights, the U.S. telemedicine market is poised to top $64 billion by 2025. Recognizing that women are their key demographic, the providers are targeting their marketing dollars in that direction. Teladoc, which went public in 2015, credits much of its success to courting moms through Facebook and other online forums. Mothers over age 25 now represent about 45% of all of their general medicine and behavioral health visits, according to CEO Jason Gorevic.....A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation from 2017 found that mothers make 79% of the decisions when it comes to selecting their kids’ doctors and take them to 77% of appointments. Roy Schoenberg, CEO of American Well, said mothers are driving the majority of virtual visits for things like bladder infections, strep throat and other acute infections. More than 60 percent of its users are women, and more than half are between ages 25 and 44.
It's now clear that telepediatrics will be one of the major drivers for the telemedicine market. Another major target will certainly be geriatric patients. Such patients are more chronically ill than pediatric patients but are also less mobile and thus ideal candidates for being cared for in their own living rooms. Because they are sicker, remote monitoring of vital signs may be necessary for their virtual visits (see: American Well Offers Remote Physical Monitoring for Telemedicine Visits). I have also blogged about how telemedicne reduces the cost of care which is increasingly important in this era of value-based care for all patient categories (see: Reducing Healthcare Costs with Virtual Visits; Tangible Evidence Provided).
As noted in the excerpt above and now that mothers of young children are an obvious target for marketing telemedicine services, they can be "courted" using Facebook or other on-line forums with their skew toward younger individuals. I am inclined to believe that health systems. as opposed to for-profit telemedicine companies, could easily attract this telepediatrics business because mothers would probably prefer to interact on a repetitive basis with a pediatricians whom they know. However, many of the large health systems have been relatively slow to adopt telemedicine in a robust manner. Kaiser and Intermountain are notable exceptions to this statement (see: Telemedicine Used in New Healthcare Settings Like Coaching; Intermountain Healthcare Launches Telemedicine Program with Connect Care).
Comments