Telehealth: Innovations in Health Technology

Telehealth — the use of technology to deliver care at a distance — offers unique opportunities and poses potential risks for academic medicine.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telehealth rose dramatically as health systems looked for ways to provide care while protecting providers and patients. As we reassess what health care looks like, it is crucial that we understand how telehealth impacts medical education and training, the delivery system and its workforce, and patients’ access to care. Additionally, the quadripartite mission (education, research, clinical care, and community collaboration) of the academic health system has an enormous role in evaluating the impact of telehealth on quality, cost, outcome of care, innovation, education, and equity.

This collection of resources:

• Shares learnings across academic medicine about telehealth implementation and training.
• Provides regulatory support for telehealth at health care institutions, including education about recent updates.
• Highlights how the AAMC and its members are implementing and using telehealth to provide high-quality care and improve access.
• Uncovers insights from research and other literature about the impact of telehealth on access and workforce.

Initiatives

2025 Digital Health and AI Collaborative

Now in its fourth year, the Digital Health and AI Collaborative is being offered again in 2025, supported by Manatt Health, in collaboration with the AAMC. The Collaborative is open to academic health systems and is a forum for digging into what works and what doesn’t in health tech and AI. The group exchanges best practices and lessons learned and explores practical strategies for integrating digital health and AI into everyday clinical care and operations.

To learn more, email telehealth@aamc.org.

Project CORE: Coordinating Optimal Referral Experiences

The AAMC has been supporting health systems in implementing eConsults (asynchronous communication between primary care providers and specialists) and improving communication and coordination at the point of referral since 2014. Initially launched at five academic health systems through a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Health Care Innovation Award, Project CORE has now expanded to over 55 health systems and children’s hospitals, better serving the needs of collective primary care populations totaling over 4 million patients. The model has been shown to improve timely access to specialty input, yield positive patient and provider experience, reduce no-show rates and leakage rates, improve comprehensiveness in primary care, and improve coordination of care between PCPs and specialists.

Publications

AAMC Telehealth Technology and Functionality Recommendations to Promote Patient-Centered and Equitable Care

In the involving digital health landscape, the AAMC has developed a core set of functional requirements and recommendations regarding technology and infrastructure when selecting devices for furnishing a range of telehealth services to address barriers to care, improve access to care for all patients, promote digital inclusion, and deliver high-quality patient-centered care, particularly in communities that have been economically or socially marginalized. Recognizing that innovations in technology are not static, we have created adaptable best practices for functional requirements that can both withstand and support the fluidity of innovations. Download AAMC Telehealth Technology and Functionality Recommendations to Promote Patient-Centered and Equitable Care.

Digital Health Equity Current Practices and Approaches of Academic Medical Centers

Digital tools such as patient portals, telehealth, and mobile apps have become an integral aspect of the delivery of health care. Digital health equity has become central to the future of digitally powered health care delivery. This report is intended to help shape health system strategies to embrace and leverage digital tools in a manner that respects those systems’ fundamental commitment to health and health care equity.

While AMCs will not, by themselves, solve all barriers to digital equity, they have a responsibility to understand these barriers and then to study and design innovative and culturally appropriate solutions to overcome them. This report highlights the roles AMCs are playing to improve digital health equity and identifies opportunities and evolving approaches that AMCs can adapt, implement, and scale. Download the Digital Health Equity Current Practices and Approaches of Academic Medical Centers.

Effective Strategies for Sustaining and Optimizing Telehealth in Primary Care

Vizient and the AAMC partnered to study telehealth sustainability in primary care, including general internal medicine, family medicine, and geriatrics. The goal of this project was to understand variations across AMCs in use of telehealth to deliver adult primary care beyond the pandemic, explore AMCs’ motivations for sustained telehealth use, understand how sustained use was achieved, and study associated implications on clinical performance. Effective strategies outlined in this report can be utilized by health systems and primary care leaders working to expand and further leverage telehealth within their primary care services. Download the Effective Strategies for Sustaining and Optimizing Telehealth in Primary Care.

Telehealth in Academic Medicine: Roles, Opportunities, and Risks

If academic health systems are to be leaders in the rapidly advancing field of telehealth, they must consider opportunities and risks in developing workforce capacity, telehealth training, and collecting high-quality data and conducting telehealth research. Access the Academic Medicine article.

Success: Integration Imperatives and Best Practices for Advancing Telehealth in Academic Health Systems

As telehealth has become an even more widely accepted mode of delivering care, AMCs are examining how telehealth can advance their strategic goals. AMCs must learn how to integrate telehealth capabilities into their everyday clinical care and operations.

This report from the AAMC Future of Academic Medicine Series will help health system leaders and telehealth managers to critically assess, design, implement, and integrate telehealth programs across mission areas. It presents effective strategies and successful practices from leaders at 15 AMCs with leading telehealth programs. Download the Sustaining Telehealth Success: Integration Imperatives and Best Practices for Advancing Telehealth in Academic Health Systems.

AAMC Telehealth Equity Catalyst (TEC) Awards

The Telehealth Equity Catalyst (TEC) Awards program is part of AAMC’s strategic effort to Improve Access to Care for All by leveraging telehealth and technology to improve health care equity.

Since the program’s inception in 2021, the TEC Awards have recognized the promising work of our member academic health systems using telehealth to address and mitigate barriers to care. Through grant funding, the AAMC empowers its member institutions to innovate and advance adaptable telehealth strategies and best practices with the goal of the ensuring accessible high-quality care for all, particularly historically marginalized and under-resourced communities. 
Learn more about the TEC Awardees.

Questions? Please contact telehealth@aamc.org.

Advancing Health Equity Through Telehealth: AAMC Learning Series

Through this learning series, the AAMC highlights the role of academic medicine in promoting and advancing health equity using telehealth and health technology. Key elements of the series focus on understanding the impact of telehealth on equity and access to care, the role data can play in improving telehealth access, and evolving best practices used by health systems to improve digital health literacy and narrow the digital divide. Register here to access the webinar recordings, slides, and related resources.

Questions? Please contact telehealth@aamc.org.

This work supports “Addressing the Digital Divide to Improve Vaccine Access & Information,” a supplemental award (#6NU50CK000506-02-01) funded under a cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Final Report: New Cross-Continuum Competencies in Telehealth

The AAMC and its Telehealth Advisory Committee have developed telehealth competencies across the continuum of UME, GME, and CME with input from a broad range of invested parties. The competencies are intended to guide educators developing curricula as well as students learning to practice and professionals continuing their development. This is the second report in the New and Emerging Areas in Medicine Series. Download the telehealth competencies report from the AAMC Store. If you have questions, please contact us at telehealth@aamc.org.

Telehealth Competencies in Action

Check out these videos to see how AAMC-member institutions are using innovative approaches to integrating telehealth into medical education and training across UME, GME, and CME.

• Telehealth Training at Stony Brook.
• Jefferson Health.
• UC Davis Health.

Telehealth Skills for Health Care Providers

The AAMC Telehealth Advisory Committee recently published a defined set of critical skills needed by all clinicians to deliver care through telehealth. This set of skills can support health care institutions and health care professionals looking for guidance on how to provide high-quality care at a time when telehealth services are being rapidly deployed. You can review the set of skills recently published in the Telemedicine and e-Health journal.

Telehealth Education Collection — MedEdPORTAL

As health systems increasingly use telehealth to provide care delivery, it is important to disseminate best practices across the field, promoting their integration into training and curricula across the continuum. The MedEdPORTAL Telehealth Education Collection features educational activities that align with the AAMC New and Emerging Areas in Medicine Series: Telehealth Competencies (Telehealth Competencies Across the Learning Continuum). The objective of the initiative is to provide credible, peer-reviewed instructional materials, aimed at UME, GME, and CE audiences, to facilitate the incorporation of telehealth practices into health care delivery.

Examples of Telehealth Training Across Academic Medicine

As health systems increasingly use telehealth to provide care delivery, it is important to capture best practices across the field and highlight the innovative ways in which telehealth is being integrated into training and curricula across UME, GME, and continuing education. Learn more about exemplary telehealth training programs across the country.

For current updates, please visit the AAMC Advocacy and Policy Page or subscribe to Washington Highlights.

Center for Connected Health Policy: Access resources about telehealth policies, focusing on federal, state, and private payer policies, state licensure laws, and federal legislation.