It's not rare for Jason Fish, MD, to look at his patients' pools or their pantries, at least within the past year. The pandemic's telehealth boom led to a humanized patient experience, drawing on patient-provider communication skills to allow for strong patient engagement.
"I've got some patients I've been managing for 10 years, and there were things that I saw hanging on their wall or pictures that just never came up during all the visits they have in the office, which is by design meant to be a sterile space, but telehealth wasn't," said Fish, SWHR Chief Medical Officer, to PatientEngagementHIT.
Even though telehealth adoption, which in July 2020 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said reached 9 million users during COVID-19's first surge, came with a bit of a learning curve, Fish said it opened new doors to patient engagement.
For one thing, Fish said it made his patients more at-ease during care encounters. Even though his patients trust him, being in his patients' homes via video call made patient-provider communication both more insightful and more useful.
