Telemedicine Is Not Enough

Over the past month, healthcare providers from psychiatrists to family physicians have rushed to telemedicine through video conferencing or healthcare apps. Treating homebound patients virtually can soften the blow of an infectious disease outbreak like Covid-19, experts say, by reducing traffic to hospitals and doctor’s offices already struggling with limited resources and higher infection risks. It works the other way, too; telemedicine allows quarantined doctors to work from home. “If we’re talking about social distancing in order to alleviate our healthcare centers, telehealth is going to play a major role,” said Christopher Ali, a University of Virginia media studies associate professor and faculty fellow with the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

But how is telemedicine supposed to work for the tens of millions of Americans who lack reliable, affordable, at-home broadband (the minimum threshold of acceptable upload and download speeds)? Ali says the answer is simple: “Telehealth is impossible without broadband. The two are synonymous.” He and others are sounding the alarm that internet inequity is now a public health crisis, as rural and urban households that lack—or can’t afford—at-home, high-speed internet are being left out of the massive, pandemic-driven shift toward telemedicine.