Emergency Telehealth Market Map: A New Model for Better, Faster Care
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With an estimated 18 million avoidable emergency department visits each year totaling around $32 billion in unnecessary costs, emergency telehealth offerings present a critical opportunity to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and ensure that EMS resources remain available for true emergencies.
Today, emergency systems in the United States are strained by a high volume of non-urgent cases—roughly two-thirds of patients arriving at the ED could be safely treated in lower-acuity settings like urgent care clinics or even at home. Emergency telehealth solutions aim to transform the way we respond to low-acuity emergencies by integrating virtual care directly into 911 and EMS workflows.
By connecting EMS personnel and patients with virtual emergency physicians or patient navigators in real time, these technologies offer a direct alternative to an unnecessary emergency department visit. Instead of transporting every patient to the ED, EMS teams can assess them via telehealth, provide immediate advice, and—if appropriate—divert them to more cost-effective care settings. This approach not only cuts down on ED overcrowding but also frees up EMS resources to handle higher-acuity calls faster.
How Emergency Telehealth Works
The emergency telehealth workflow begins when a non-emergent call is identified by EMS on scene. Once the EMS team deems it safe, they can activate a telehealth solution and connect the patient—through audio/video conferencing—with an emergency physician or a patient navigator. The patient then has a choice: proceed with telehealth-directed care and potential referral to a lower-acuity setting (like a primary care office or urgent care) or request traditional transport to the emergency department.
If the patient opts for virtual evaluation, the physician can guide triage, prescribe basic medications, and even help coordinate follow-up services such as transportation, primary care appointments, mental health referrals, or social services support. This makes emergency telehealth a comprehensive solution that goes beyond initial triage and brings patient-centered care directly to the field.
Breaking Down the Emergency Telehealth Market
Several vendors have emerged to support this new paradigm of emergency care, each with their own areas of focus and technology capabilities:
Avel eCare, RelyMD, Teladoc, and Tele911: Provide 24/7 access to emergency physicians who can evaluate patients virtually, guide EMS teams, and quickly determine if patients can be safely treated outside the ED.
RightSite: Extends beyond pure emergency telehealth triage by offering assistance with prescriptions, transportation arrangements, and social service referrals—all from the field—to facilitate a full “right place, right time” approach to care.
Pulsara: Primarily a communication and care coordination platform that streamlines patient data sharing among EMS, hospitals, and specialists. Pulsara also supports audio/video calls with the hospital, enabling real-time input that can help determine the best site of care without a default ED trip.
The Future of Emergency Telehealth
While Medicare’s Emergency Triage, Treat, and Transport (ET3) model showed early promise by allowing ambulance care teams to be reimbursed for transporting patients to alternative sites of care or offering treatment in place via telehealth, the program ended prematurely due to low participation and fewer-than-expected interventions. Despite ET3’s early closure, it highlighted the need for reimbursement and policy models that support more flexible, patient-centric emergency care options. Without these frameworks in place, telehealth-focused businesses may struggle to gain long-term traction and prove their value in reshaping the emergency care landscape.
Regardless of the payment model, we expect emergency telehealth solutions to continue to evolve, with deeper integration into EMS workflows, more robust clinical decision support tools, and improved connectivity with community resources. Future solutions may integrate directly with the patient’s medical record and leverage predictive analytics and AI-driven triage protocols, helping EMS teams identify when a patient can be safely treated outside the hospital. More comprehensive reimbursement frameworks will be needed to encourage wider adoption, ensuring these technologies not only improve patient care but also align financial incentives.
Over time, these tools could dramatically shift how emergency medicine is delivered—optimizing resource utilization, reducing unnecessary ED visits, cutting costs, and improving the patient experience. Emergency telehealth stands poised to create a more efficient, patient-centered emergency ecosystem, keeping true emergencies front and center while guiding lower-acuity patients toward the right level of care.
Acknowledgement: In writing this article, we were influenced by the work of the team at AI Checkup, who wrote an excellent article on AI and its potential for workflows across the ED. We recommend checking out their original piece here for additional perspectives and insights.