Just as telehealth dominated the last two years of digital health, remote monitoring is likely to dominate the next: that’s pretty much our prediction for the coming year or two under these strange days indeed. Everyone is getting in on the remote monitoring act and it makes sense, clinically, practically and financially.

We reckon the alleged revolution in telehealth in Australia has turned out to be overhyped in a practical sense. While the acute care sector has struggled valiantly over the years to develop funded telehealth models of care using video conferencing, the modality has not been taken up in primary care in the slightest, predominantly due to funding concerns. But when funding does comes through – such as, say, temporary MBS items during a pandemic – phone calls are not really what telehealth is all about. GPs claiming for monitoring known patients by phone should be a given under a properly funded primary care system. Unfortunately, we are stuck with fee for service so even the most minor funding shift is heralded as revolutionary.