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The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a shift to telemedicine — using communication technologies to deliver care to patients at a distance. In two recent cross-sectional U.S. studies, researchers used 2018 data from nationally representative samples of Medicare beneficiaries to evaluate telemedicine readiness and disparities among older adults.
In one study, investigators assessed 4525 older adults for “telemedicine unreadiness,” defined as meeting any of the following criteria: difficulty hearing while using a telephone; problems speaking or making oneself understood; possible dementia; impaired vision; not owning internet-enabled devices or not knowing how to use them; or no use of e-mail, texting, or Internet in the past month. An estimated …