With COVID opening the door to the recent rise in telehealth, we’ve spent some time talking about its pros and cons, what is needed to help sustain its growth, and our own predictions for its longevity.

It goes without saying that this boom in telehealth will create a lasting impact on how healthcare operates. But even pre-COVID, we’ve posited that telehealth has the potential to be a disruptive force in healthcare.

The Theory of Disruptive Innovation, defined by the late Professor Clayton Christensen, explains the process by which simple, convenient, and affordable solutions become the norm in industries historically characterized by expensive and complicated ones. And as healthcare is definitely an expensive and complicated industry, there is a lot of room to potentially disrupt much of how healthcare operates.

It’s important to note that disruption is not just about the innovative solution, no matter how exciting the technology may be. It’s about using the solution to solve a problem for consumers that makers of incumbent solutions are ignoring—usually in a cheaper, simpler, and more accessible way. In other words, the way the solution is deployed often determines whether it will completely transform an industry by upending existing solutions, or merely offer moderate improvements.

So under what conditions might telehealth transform healthcare? Let’s look at the basics. Telehealth enables virtual consultations between healthcare professionals and consumers. But when used simply to enable physicians in traditional healthcare models to consult with more patients in a day than they could physically see at their offices, the technology merely improves the status quo. It won’t help to disrupt traditional models of care.

Read the full article about telehealth services by Jessica Plante at Christensen Institute.