Surge in patients overwhelms telehealth services amid coronavirus pandemic

Telehealth services are sagging under the weight of an unprecedented surge in patients as hospitals scramble to shift routine care online in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The crisis is stressing major telehealth providers’ technical infrastructure and the supply of physicians prepared to deliver care virtually.

Over the last week, a sudden explosion of demand has slammed into hospitals used to delivering telehealth consults for only a handful of patients a day. Clinicians and telehealth companies, initially thrilled with the uptick in business, are now faced with huge backlogs, several providers and company executives told STAT.

“You can get the technology to support these astounding volumes,” said Roy Schoenberg, the CEO of the Boston-based telemedicine company Amwell. “But you’re very quickly getting to a point where the supply of medical services isn’t there. We need to have enough clinicians to allow us to handle that incoming