Telehealth can help by allowing providers to safely evaluate and identify potentially infected patients through video conferencing technologies. For patients at high-risk for COVID-19, or being diagnosed with it based on symptoms, they’ll most likely be advised to stay home and self-quarantine, due to the lack of test kits. In these situations, virtual consults can help providers keep a watchful eye on disease progression, enabling them to treat and monitor patients with milder cases and know who is sick enough to refer to a hospital. 

Responding to COVID-19 will place an overwhelming burden on providers. We are going to reach the point where supply does not meet demand. However, not all areas of the country will be affected equally at the same time. One of the beauties of telehealth is to do load balancing. We can take a supply of providers from one side of the country, beam them through this technology to patients in a place that is overwhelmed. Patients could be at home, and virtual visits could be conducted through telehealth carts and devices inside emergency rooms.

A vast number of health care workers have to be quarantined at home and potential exposure to COVID-19 has raised concern about workforce capacity. At institutions with emergency department tele-intake or direct-to-consumer care, quarantined physicians can cover those services, freeing up other physicians to perform in-person care. Office-based practices can employ quarantined physicians to care for patients remotely.

Beyond treating and screening potential COVID-19 patients, telehealth provides an option for providing routine care to the elderly and other high-risk patients, which also could be a strategy to protect at-risk patients from exposure and provide routine care. Healthcare systems could also use telehealth to deliver care to patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, asthma, and heart disease, to lower their exposure to the physician's office.