Telemedicine
How did rural telemedicine change in COVID?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Rural Ontario telemedicine use jumped from about 1.4% of patients in 2012 to 28% in early 2020 as temporary billing codes expanded virtual care.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Multiple studies in this library examine telemedicine with empirical patient or population outcomes rather than opinion alone.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Rural telemedicine users rose from 14,666 (1.4%) to 290,401 (28.1%). Pre-pandemic use concentrated in Northern Ontario and younger adults; during COVID, use broadened geographically, skewed female, rose with age, and surged in urban as well as rural areas.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Effect sizes and settings differ across telemedicine studies — digital vs clinic, trial vs observational — so results should not be pooled casually.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Repeated administrative snapshots of rural telemedicine in Ontario are sometimes filed with surveys even though nobody filled a questionnaire. Users rose from 14,666 (1.4%) in earlier years to 290,401 (28.1%) in the first half of 2020 as COVID-era fee codes broadened virtual visits. Pre-pandemic use concentrated in Northern Ontario and younger adults; during COVID, use broadened geographically, skewed female, rose with age, and surged in urban as well as rural areas. Utilisation is not clinical quality or safe substitution for needed exams.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Hypothetical acceptance, reported coverage, administrative utilisation and CRT endline surveys are four different measurement jobs. Libya's 79.6% at ≥90% efficacy is a stated intention under a scenario. Seasonal flu coverage of ~21% and pandemic coverage of 11.1% are recalled past behaviour. Telemedicine's jump from 1.4% to 28.1% is billing data. SASA!'s ~50% IPV contrast is a randomised community comparison that used surveys. Averaging those percentages as 'survey findings on uptake' erases the disagreements.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
Effect sizes and settings differ across telemedicine studies — digital vs clinic, trial vs observational — so results should not be pooled casually.
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Hypothetical acceptance, reported coverage, administrative utilisation and CRT endline surveys are four different measurement jobs. Libya's 79.6% at ≥90% efficacy is a stated intention under a scenario. Seasonal flu coverage of ~21% and pandemic coverage of 11.1% are recalled past behaviour. Telemedicine's jump from 1.4% to 28.1% is billing data. SASA!'s ~50% IPV contrast is a randomised community comparison that used surveys. Averaging those percentages as 'survey findings on uptake' erases the disagreements.
- Supports · COVID vaccine acceptance in Libya
- Supports · Seasonal vs pandemic flu vaccine coverage
- Supports · SASA! cut partner violence in Kampala
Study at a glance
- Design
- Other — Ontario health-administrative descriptive comparison of telemedicine use in 2012, 2016, and early 2020
- N
- N=1033271 · 2020 rural resident denominator; 290,401 (28.1%) with ≥1 telemedicine visit (vs 14,666/1,017,546 in 2012)
- Population
- Rural Ontario patients in health-administrative data
- Outcome
- Prevalence and demographic patterns of telemedicine use
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Inspect source passages
How did rural telemedicine change in COVID?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
Rural telemedicine users rose from 1.4% (2012) to 28.1% (2020)
The number of rural patients who received at least one telemedicine visit increased from 2012 (n=14,666/1,017,546, 1.4%) to 2020 (n=290,401/1,033,271, 28.1%).
What organization originally promoted rural video visits in Ontario?
The Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN) is an organization funded by the provincial government, which aimed to initially increase health care access among the rural population by facilitating 2-way videoconferencing between patients and care providers [].
Key findings
Rural telemedicine users rose from 14,666 (1.4%) to 290,401 (28.1%). Pre-pandemic use concentrated in Northern Ontario and younger adults; during COVID, use broadened geographically, skewed female, rose with age, and surged in urban as well as rural areas.
Methodology
Using health-administrative data, investigators compared rural patients with ≥1 telemedicine visit in 2012, 2016, and the first half of 2020, describing age, sex, region, income, and chronic-disease patterns as COVID-era fee codes enabled broader virtual visits.
Limitations
Utilization data do not measure clinical quality, equity of outcomes, or whether virtual visits replaced necessary in-person exams safely.
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