Telemedicine Usage in America During COVID-19

Objectives: Telemedicine is a method for patients to connect with their healthcare providers (HCP), including physicians, dentists, nurses and pharmacists. Patients are able to meet with their HCP virtually, schedule appointments and order prescriptions. While convenient, telemedicine requires use of electronic devices and internet connection. Without it, this can cause a digital divide between those who have access to telemedicine and those who do not. To mitigate this, it is important to first look at who is utilizing telemedicine. The goal of this study was to explore telemedicine use among adults in the United States (U.S.) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: The data were obtained from the Household Pulse Survey (HPS). HPS is a 20-minute rapid online response survey to assess household experiences, and asked questions on telemedicine use among adults 18 years and older from April 2020 to the present. We computed descriptive statistics and used cross-correlation to test the time series data.
Results: Individuals with high school diploma or general education used the least telemedicine (20.58%) compared to those who had some college (23.29%) (p<0.05) or were college graduates (22.61%) (p<0.05). Blacks used telemedicine (26.31%) more than Asians (22.01%) (p<0.05). Individuals with disability (35.40%) used telemedicine substantially more than individuals without disabilities (20.21%) (p<0.05). Older individuals aged 80 years or over (27.63%) also used telemedicine substantially more than individuals between ages 18 to 29 years old (18.44%) (p<0.05) throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conclusions: Telemedicine use varies widely across the population. Our study suggests that virtual dental consultation and visits are in higher demand for elderly and individuals with disability. However, more research needs to be done to understand different factors that influence different groups’ participation in telemedicine.