Telemedicine, Opioid Stewardship, and COVID-19: Digital Transformation During a Global Pandemic

A Gupta, RJ Kulchar, K Chen, C Moon, S Srinivas.

Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice. May 2022. Telemedicine provides equitable, accessible, and affordable healthcare to individuals globally. Telemedicine has emerged as a vital resource for interdisciplinary healthcare professionals to provide critical medical care on the frontlines during the combined COVID-19 pandemic and the opioid crisis. With the recent expansion of insurance coverage of telemedicine services by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in 2020, there has been an uptick in the need to understand the necessity to comprehensively train health care professionals on telemedicine predominantly during a rapidly emerging crisis. This survey study gathered 98 survey responses from interdisciplinary healthcare professionals regarding their telemedicine experience during a crisis focusing on trends of use with the opioid crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results demonstrate that during the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing pain and opioid management among other variables may provide a novel, innovation to address an unmet need in healthcare. Further expanded population-based research and randomized clinical trials are necessary to confirm these preliminary recommendations and form best practices. In addition, further studies will confirm the benefits of interdisciplinary healthcare professionals' engagement in harm reduction strategies via telemedicine to address the opioid crisis.