Telehealth is the future of rural health care, CEO of the National Rural Health Association says at telehealth meeting

Telehealth could be the key to rural healthcare's future, but stakeholders must figure out how to remove barriers to access, said Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, at the Department for Health and Human Services' National Telehealth Conference. 

During a panel discussion, Morgan said many rural health-care providers lack consistent, affordable broadband access, and that many don't know that telehealth services are available or how to use them, Katie Adams reports for MedCity News. He called the rural-urban access gap "beyond frustrating" and called on the health-care industry to stop studying whether telehealth helps rural patients. That question is settled, he said; instead, the industry should focus on identifying and removing barriers to access. 

Morgan "and fellow panelist Ann Mond Johnson, CEO of the American Telemedicine Association, said communication about telehealth can be improved through partnerships with local organizations and community leaders, as patients are more likely to trust these messengers and heed their messages," Adams reports. "This need for programs designed to scale rural patients’ telehealth use is especially dire as healthcare’s workforce crisis intensifies . . . NRHA says the patient-to-primary care physician ratio in rural communities is 39.8 physicians per 100,000 people, compared to 53.3 physicians per 100,000 in urban communities, a disparity that is exacerbated by the country’s ongoing shortage of health-care workers."