Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Ark., will discontinue its mobile urgent care app Dec. 31, but will still offer alternative telehealth options. 

Here are the five most popular telehealth stories published by Becker's Hospital Review in 2020:

From social distancing requirements to expanded insurance coverage, telehealth usage became widespread this year thanks to several components of the healthcare industry's response to COVID-19.

In previous posts of this series, we discussed several benefits of using telehealth during COVID-19 spikes and beyond – including addressing healthcare inequality, how telehealth works in tandem with remote patient monitoring and asynchronous care, and how it helps keep patients connected when elective procedures are deferred due to capacity issues. 

On March 18, 2020, CMS temporarily banned “elective surgeries, and  non-essential medical, surgical, and dental procedures ” in order to reserve hospital and ICU capacity exclusively for COVID-19 cases. 

Telehealth adoption accelerated this year thanks to social distancing initiatives aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19. 

The acceleration of virtual care adoption by both providers and patients during the pandemic has helped develop new telehealth opportunities and prepared health systems to deal with the latest virus resurgence.

ProMedica launched an at-home acute care offering for patients who would have typically required hospitalization, the Toledo, Ohio-based health system announced Dec. 17.

The COVID-19 pandemic greatly accelerated telehealth adoption and highlighted the need for a digital intake process that helps health systems and medical groups collect the same important patient information for virtual visits as they do for in-person ones.

As hospitals and health systems continue the shift to telemedicine, new issues and risks with cybersecurity have arisen that will require ongoing work to preserve privacy and safe care delivery, Harvard Medical School researchers say. 

The American Telemedicine Association and Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society are among a group of telehealth organizations urging Congress to extend the temporary virtual care flexibilities passed for the COVID-19 public health emergency until the end of 2021. 

The number of Americans who reported having participated in at least one telehealth visit has increased by 57% since the COVID-19 outbreak began.

Research points to telehealth adoption among consumers at 46%, up from 11% in 2019. Now that we are in a second surge of the COVID-19 virus, I would expect to see these numbers rise even more.

The year 2020 has seen a sharp rise in telehealth services stemming, in part, from cancelled or deferred elective procedures, office visits, and outpatient tests due to COVID-19.

Seattle-based UW Medicine rolled out a new on-demand virtual care program that lets patients receive medical care via text message consults with physicians, according to a Dec. 9 news release. 

Englewood (N.J.) Health became the first health system to participate in a new virtual training program for clinicians using professional actors to simulate real patient encounters in which they have to deliver negative news over video chat. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, U.S. providers have transitioned one-third or more of their in-person care to telemedicine, signaling a shift in the patient experience and consumer expectations for convenience of care, according to Jessica Dudley, MD, and Iyue Sung. 

The Federal Communications Commission awarded $9.2 billion Dec. 7 to fund the development of high-speed broadband networks for more than 10 million rural Americans across the country.

Stony Brook (N.Y.) Medicine will use a $966,026 award from the FCC's COVID-19 Telehealth Program to provide digital devices and remote monitoring equipment to individuals in need to participate in virtual care visits.

The Massachusetts Association of Health Plans is sponsoring an 18-month study to examine how access to telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic has varied based on race, ethnicity and socioeconomic factors, according to a Dec. 2 news release.