The Arizona Telemedicine Program Blog

In last week’s blog, I discussed Drug Enforcement Agency limitations on the use of telemedicine to prescribe controlled substances. To summarize the restrictions, the DEA requires that any prescription of a controlled substance must be issued by a practitioner who has conducted at least one in-person medical evaluation of the patient, with a few, very complicated exceptions.

During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, the DEA has relaxed these restrictions and is allowing telehealth evaluations to substitute for in-person evaluations. Sara Gibson, MD, a Flagstaff-based telepsychiatrist, last week discussed the impacts of the restrictions and waivers on patients in underserved areas with opioid use disorder. Today, she points out another at-risk population affected by the DEA prescribing restrictions outside of the PHE.

What is Telemedicine?

In short, telemedicine is the remote treatment or consultation provided by a medical professional via electronic means such as phone call, video conference or online chat. Such communication is carried out in real time when a patient needs medical advice that doesn’t require physical presence of a patient at the doctor’s office.

The goal of telehealth is to make treatment more convenient and more cost-efficient. What is more, it is a lifesaver for patients with chronic diseases like diabetes or high blood pressure who aren’t in need of emergency treatment, but need regular medical advice on lifestyle regime, or medicine dosage.

What we call telemedicine nowadays actually started in the 1950s, when a few hospitals and university medical facilities started to look for methods and techniques that would allow them to share images and information via telephone. In one of the first instances of the successful usage of telemedicine, two healthcare facilities in Pennsylvania, U.S. transferred radiological images over the telephone. In the initial days, telemedicine was majorly used for connecting doctors working in one location to specialists somewhere far away.

This method was hugely beneficial to patients or populations in rural areas, where specialists were not easily available. As the systems and equipment used for connecting healthcare practitioners across different regions became more expensive and complex over the next few years, especially with the development of technologically advanced devices, the use of the approach started becoming limited. However, the advent of the internet and the subsequent emergence of video transmission and smart devices completely transformed the practice of telemedicine and made this technique affordable and convenient.