Speaker 1: Imagine this. You're at home, and your doctor is hundreds of miles away. You're in the middle of a deep, deep therapy session. I'm not talking about teleportation. I'm talking about telehealth.

Speaker 2: ♪♪ Virtual healthcare is the ability to access mental and physical and emotional care wherever you are.

Speaker 3: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the percentage of patients who were using telehealth was about 11%. Now, going into the third year, we've seen a significant increase in the use to 46%. The various aspects of a physical exam still is limited, and other technologies are in the pipeline. Remote monitoring, wearable trackers that can really help to augment the virtual healthcare space.

Speaker 1: Virtual care is transforming the way that we're interacting with healthcare. Not only does it break down barriers when it comes to travel, to cost, to accessibility, but it also reduces shame when it comes to reaching out about your own health.

Speaker 4: Before virtual care or before, you know, online tools were available to us, your social support group was people that lived in your communities. There was physical limitations. All of a sudden, if you've gone through something that's really specific or really personal, there are ways that you can join communities virtually to talk about that and get support. The pandemic absolutely accelerated the de-stigmatization of conversations around health. More people were talking about their health after the pandemic started than before because they knew other people were struggling. Everybody was struggling with something.

Speaker 2: If you go to any social media platform right now, it feels like vulnerability really is the currency. People are proud to share that they're setting boundaries and that they're not dealing with toxic friends anymore. I just think we wouldn't have seen that even a few years ago without this shift that the pandemic has brought along.

Speaker 1: For people living in areas with limited healthcare resources, virtual care can help maintain regular visits and follow-up care with the doctor of their choice. The economics of virtual care also benefit medical providers, and patients now have access to providers that they normally wouldn't have.

Speaker 4: Part of why therapy is so expensive, right? The therapists are in business for themselves, and so that's an expensive operation. If you can reduce that overhead and run things in a more virtual way, all of a sudden the cost goes down. And that person that might not be able to afford that $250 an hour might be able to afford group teletherapy or digital therapy.

Speaker 2: Not only are we seeing the ability for people to, for example, get therapy from their house, but they're also seeing more representation and more inclusion in that therapy. And a huge part of why that's happening is that more people are able, on the supply side, to get into care, whether that's through trainings and certifications that you can get online, or physically not having to go and pay for an office to rent to see clients, right? Not only do we get more representation, but now we're having conversations about cultural differences and what is the norm and what is standardized.

Speaker 4: So that is really important that that representation happens between doctor and patient, therapist and patient, because there'll be a systemic understanding of how our mental health or our physical health has been impacted by the world. The more someone can connect with your experience, the more you'll open up, feel seen, and feel safe. And safety is so key.

Speaker 3: I'm hopeful that we start to think of all the ways that makes it even more accessible for people. But if we think outside of the box, we can also think of virtual healthcare as delivering care in a mobile sense as well, going where people are and providing care.

Speaker 1: The kind of innovation that we're seeing today in the virtual care landscape is paving the way for more creative problem-solving in the future. I mean, just imagine how many more people we can reach with this model of care.

Speaker 2: I hope that the future of healthcare in America is more holistic. If you think about all the data that we're giving to meditation apps and we're giving to our nutrition apps and our doctor when we go in person, all of that should be following us along our healthcare experience, because what we know is that it's all connected.

Speaker 4: Virtual care is amazing because it provides access, it's easier, but we've also learned in the last two years, like just the importance of in-person time and missing so much of that tangible connection and eye contact of sitting across from someone. My vision and goal is that we can do both. I believe a hybrid version where we're not expecting virtual to solve everything, but we can benefit from the access and still get that in-person time. There's more tools out there than there ever was, and you deserve to prioritize yourself. You are not alone in whatever it is that you're going through. You are not alone in whatever it is that you're going through.