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The use of telemedicine has historically been low among allergy practitioners compared with other specialists, but the pandemic has accelerated the growth of virtual allergy visits.
"My own practice went from zero to 100% telemedicine in a matter of days," Susan Bailey, MD, an allergist at Fort Worth Allergy and Asthma Associates, in Fort Worth, Texas, and immediate past president of the American Medical Association, said during a plenary session at the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (ACAAI) 2021 Annual Meeting, held November 4–8 in New Orleans.
"I think the pandemic really pushed people out of necessity to adopt telehealth, or really decide if it's for them or not, quicker than they might have," said Melinda Rathkopf, MD, director of the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Center of Alaska, in Anchorage, in an interview with Medscape Medical News before co-moderating a telemedicine session at the conference.
Across medicine, practitioners are seeing 50 to 175 times the number of patients through telehealth than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, and nearly half of doctors are continuing to use telehealth as the pandemic causes shifts in practice patterns and the delivery of care.
