Abstract
From board rooms, to classrooms, to Saturday Night Live skits, the video conferencing app Zoom became a seemingly overnight sensation as a way to connect while businesses were shuttered and individuals were forced to stay at home when the coronavirus pandemic erupted in the United States in March 2020. From 10 million daily users in December 2019 to over 200 million daily users by March 2020, the company founded in 2011 became a market leader as the country tried to figure out how to continue business as usual—to the extent possible—during the global pandemic. While hospitals prepared for the onslaught of patients suffering from COVID–19, many physicians and physician offices around the country not tasked with treating patients suffering from COVID–19 shuttered their doors along with other businesses and contemplated ways in which they could still render necessary care to their patients.4 How could physicians advise or diagnose patients who exhibited coronavirus symptoms without exposing other patients to coronavirus? How could physicians who were themselves immunocompromised or at special risk if they were to contract COVID–19 continue to treat their patients? How could patients feel comfortable seeking care for non-COVID–19 related conditions without feeling like seeking such care could expose them to the virus? In short, providers were facing many of the same dilemmas that other businesses have been facing during the global pandemic, and just like the 200 million fellow Americans who turned to Zoom, the health care industry likewise looked to technology.
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