August 30, 2023
The vast majority (94.6%) of U.S. hospitals use telemedicine, found the Eagle 2023 Telemedicine Adoption Survey. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the physician shortage is expected to reach 122,000 by 2032, which telemedicine can help offset.
Across all of the surveyed hospitals, a telemedicine implementation rate of 89% was identified. Large hospitals (over 250 beds) have the highest telemedicine implementation of 97.7%.
The top reasons for using telemedicine include physician specialty support (52.2%), surge specialty support (40.3%), staffing gap support (39.8%) and night shift support (37.1%). Across all hospital sizes, dermatology (40.6%) is the top specialty used.
Demonstrating high patient satisfaction, the survey found that 87.3% of respondents reported that patients are either satisfied or very satisfied with their telemedicine care. Small hospitals (under 100 beds) have a lower patient satisfaction rate of 76.9%. The top telemedicine implementation challenges include:
- Program infrastructure resources (60%)
- Slow physician response times (52.7%)
- Poor technology integration (18.2%)
Of interest, each region of the country reported a different benefit of telemedicine that they value most.
- Southeast: Improved Access to Care (46.8%)
- Southwest: Enhanced Specialty Services (48.7%)
- Northwest: Improved Clinical Retention (54.4%)
- Midwest: Improved Clinician Recruiting (47.3%)