Telehealth utilization has stabilized at levels 38X higher than before the pandemic. After an initial spike to more than 32 percent of office and outpatient visits occurring via telehealth in April 2020, utilization levels have largely stabilized, ranging from 13 to 17 percent across all specialties.2 This utilization reflects more than two-thirds of what we anticipated as visits that could be virtualized.3
Similarly, consumer and provider attitudes toward telehealth have improved since the pre-COVID-19 era. Perceptions and usage have dropped slightly since the peak in spring 2020. Some barriers—such as perceptions of technology security—remain to be addressed to sustain consumer and provider virtual health adoption, and models are likely to evolve to optimize hybrid virtual and in-person care delivery.
Some regulatory changes that facilitated expanded use of telehealth have been made permanent, for example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ expansion of reimbursable telehealth codes for the 2021 physician fee schedule. But uncertainty still exists as to the fate of other services that may lose their waiver status when the public health emergency ends.
Investment in virtual care and digital health more broadly has skyrocketed, fueling further innovation, with 3X the level of venture capitalist digital health investment in 2020 than it had in 2017.4
Virtual healthcare models and business models are evolving and proliferating, moving from purely “virtual urgent care” to a range of services enabling longitudinal virtual care, integration of telehealth with other virtual health solutions, and hybrid virtual/in-person care models, with the potential to improve consumer experience/convenience, access, outcomes, and affordability.
Inside the company’s automated warehouse in China Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is challenging Amazon by promising fast deliveries from China to anywhere in the world. WSJ visits Alibaba’s largest automated warehouse to see how robots and a vast logistics network are helping it expand globally. Composite: Clément Bürge
A new approach developed by Harvard Medical School researchers uses yeast to rapidly evolve synthetic antibody fragments called nanobodies with the aim to find variants that are effective at binding to selected antigens, including SARS-CoV-2. The antibodies are intended for use in diagnostic tests and disease treatments. Read the full story: https://hms.harvard.edu/news/antibody…
Electric-vehicle entrepreneurs are working on the industry’s biggest bottleneck: charging infrastructure. Companies are building more chargers, but it may not be enough to make EVs work for people who can’t plug in at home. Photo illustration: Carlos Waters/WSJ
San Diego is set to soon start supplying itself with millions of gallons a day of fresh, drinkable water, using saltwater from the Pacific Ocean, converted by a brand new desalination plant. As California’s historic drought continues, the plant will likely intensify the debate over the role of desalination may play in the state’s water supply. Special Correspondent Mike Taibbi reports.
A flying car has successfully completed its first intercity flight between two airports in Slovakia. The prototype, called AirCar, took off from Nitra and landed in Bratislava 35 minutes later. Using wings that fold away in less than three minutes and a propeller at its rear, the dual-transportation vehicle has now completed more than 40 hours of test flight.
How close have you ever gotten to a wild bird? Can you remember the details of its plumage or the curvature of its beak? Did it sit in one place long enough for you to really study all of its colors and other characteristics? Probably not—at least if it was alive. The avid birders among us sometimes search their whole life for a glimpse of a particularly rare species. But if you are just a casual observer of the winged creatures around us, the ones you do see likely come and go as flashes of color and sound. For ornithologists, the elusive nature of birds is just part of the job. Beyond fieldwork, though, access to rare or extinct species or those with a limited range can be especially difficult to get. If you were, say, hoping to study the green-headed tanager (a riotously multicolored songbird native to South America) and unable to travel to the northeastern region of the continent where it can be found, you would have to ask a museum to send you a specimen in the mail. Access to rare specimens, such as those of extinct birds, can be especially difficult to get.
The EU has been working for months on a joint digital travel #certificate for those vaccinated, freshly tested, or recently recovered from the virus. The free certificates, which will contain a QR code with advanced security features, will allow people to move between #European countries without having to quarantine or undergo extra coronavirus tests upon arrival. The pass is already available in France.
With so many myths about COVID-19 vaccines regarding their impact on our health, many people don’t know what to believe. In our fact check, find out what you need to know about the mRNA vaccines — as we expose the myths and reveal the facts.
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