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If John F. Kennedy’s 1959 speech to the United Negro College Fund is to be believed, crisis leads to opportunity. Which means that even the destruction wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic might be expected to produce opportunities—likely in the form of accelerated innovation.
Telemedicine has been in development for years, but fraught with regulatory, payment, and technology hurdles, its adoption has been slow and fitful. COVID-19 seems to have leveled these barriers. Since the pandemic began, there has been a massive increase in the use of telemedicine in outpatient care—soaring in some hospitals from less than 10% to more than 90%.
In a recent article for Ophthalmology Times, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Professor Phillip Phan and two colleagues address the obstacles that must be cleared before the widespread adoption of telemedicine in the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders.
Peering beyond ophthalmology, Phan, the Alonzo and Virginia Decker of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, spoke with the Carey Business School about the future of telemedicine in more general terms.