Can you hear me now?: Improving palliative care access through telehealth

Telehealth has been increasingly used to expand healthcare access over the last two decades. However, this had not been the case for palliative care (PC), because telehealth was considered nontraditional and impractical due to the sensitive nature of conversations and a high touch philosophy. Motivated by limited PC access to rural and underserved populations and positive PC telehealth studies, clinical PC telehealth models have been developing. However, nearly overnight, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use and uptake of telehealth across health care and especially in PC. As a result, clinicians, administrators, and others agree that telehealth is here to stay, and will likely maintain widespread use and refinement beyond rural areas. The purpose of this review is to describe exemplar PC telehealth programs in research and clinical practice, including pros and cons, lessons learned, and future directions for the ongoing development and expansion of PC via telehealth across diseases and the lifespan.

Automated summary

Telehealth has been increasingly used in healthcare over the past two decades, but had not been widely adopted in palliative care. However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of telehealth in healthcare, including in palliative care. Telehealth models for palliative care are being developed and are expected to continue to be used and refined in the future.