The Rapid Acceleration of Telehealth and the State and Federal Policies That Fueled It

Abstract

From telegraph to telephone and from radio to television to the internet, healthcare services have been communicated and received across the United States for decades. For example, rural Alaskan populations’ reliance on telehealth resulted in a system of health aides in communities who transmit information to specialists afar (Nesbitt, 2012). As technologies advanced, the reach and breadth of telehealth—and the services provided—exponentially grew. Over the past 2 years, however, it was a pandemic, not a technological advancement, that propelled telehealth into the mainstream.