The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Telemedicine

This report was commissioned by the Health Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in June 2021, to be delivered back to the Committee in June 2022, with the aim of assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of telemedicine in OECD countries.The report provides an update to a Health Working Paper published in January 2020, which showed that, while care delivered via telemedicine could be both safe and effective, telemedicine services represented only a small fraction of all health care activity and spending.At that time, providers and patients seeking to use telemedicine faced regulatory uncertainty, limited financing and reimbursement, and unclear…