Independent healthcare accreditor URAC and Telemedicine Magazine will host the Telemed Leadership Forum 2018: ROI of Telehealth, March 27 – 29, 2018 at the Renaissance Washington, DC.

Telehealth services could provide a feasible and effective platform for improving outcomes of patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), according to a study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

With healthcare costs expected to increase 5 percent in the next year, providers are looking for more effective ways to deliver care, including telehealth. According to the Large Employers’ 2018 Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey by the National Business Group on Health, 96 percent of employers are set to offer telehealth services.

Patients may be able to receive medical marijuana delivered via a new telehealth platform provided by Columbia Care. The New York-based company's HIPAA-compliant video conferencing software will provide homebound patients a secure delivery service for medication.

InTouch Health, the leading enterprise telehealth platform, announced today a partnership agreement with Cardiovascular Institute of the South (CIS) to provide remote medical services geared towards emergent and general cardiology expertise in acute settings, adding a fourth service line to the company's physician capacity management offering. CIS will increase breadth and depth of adoption of InTouch Health's services, and extend its cardiology expertise to InTouch Health in two critical ways: (1) addition of cardiologists to InTouch Health's physician capacity management offering, and (2) collaboration on development of workflow solutions to drive best practices and allow for standardized quality of care in telecardiology settings.

The proposed Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) rule would provide a boost in reimbursement to telehealth services, paying for several new services and codes.

The popularity of telehealth continues to grow with 59 percent of patients reportedly increasing their usage, according to a recent survey from the Health Industry Distributors Association.

Telehealth is expanding beyond use in hospitals and rural healthcare to reach children and school nurses. With only 40 percent of U.S. schools having a full-time nurse, telehealth can allow nurses to treat children in school.