Well, we’ve just about arrived at putting an end to 2020 — the year that nobody expected or wanted.

I’ve written before about what it felt like when our new normal was suddenly forced upon us. One day it was business as usual, the next we were grappling with a virus that we knew little about yet was exponentially spreading.

While the healthcare industry has historically been resistant to change, the pandemic allowed little room for sluggish responses and preconceived notions. For the last ten months, everyone from industry stalwarts to digital health innovators have been sprinting at full speed to stand up telehealth and virtual care solutions in order to expand access while decreasing the risk of exposure. …

Telehealth has been the darling industry of 2020. The silver lining in an unprecedented pandemic, it’s rapidly becoming an incredible catalyst for evolving healthcare as we know it.

This is our moment! We’ve finally changed hearts and minds about what we’ve been championing for the last ten years. As an industry, we’ve collectively shepherded our virtual care technologies into mainstream adoption, made regulators take notice of policy barriers and introduce changes, and secured record funding for our disruptive businesses.

But have we really climbed the mountain and planted our virtual care flag atop the peak? …

I get asked nearly every day, “So, who does Wheel work with?” With a smile, I always answer that question the same way, “We power a lot of the healthcare companies you know and love.”

It’s not always satisfying to be on the other end of that answer, but when I explain why Wheel doesn’t publicly talk about our clients, everyone gets it.

We are the industry’s secret weapon.

It used to be that building your own clinical network was seen as a differentiator — a way to ensure quality patient experiences and clinical outcomes in the telehealth industry. But times have changed. …

It happened so fast. One day it was business as usual, and seemingly the next day the global pandemic was upon us.

At Wheel, I remember thinking, “Okay, first we need to make some rapid decisions. Do we close the office? Do we cancel travel? How do I prepare my teams for an overnight change in how we work?”

But then it became increasingly clear that there were BIGGER, far more critical decisions to be made — about our business and industry. How could we scale faster to meet the demand for virtual care solutions? As a startup fresh off of our Series A fund raise, we were already a super agile organization, but we had to become even more adaptive and responsive than ever. …

I recently had a critical conversation with both my Chief Medical Director, Dr. Rafid Fadul, and my Co-founder, Griffin Mulcahey. And the net of the conversation was this:

“This is a perfect storm, and it’s scary: a world on the brink of a pandemic, entire countries in crisis and quarantine, and a growing shortage of doctors and healthcare workers. How do we orient the public conversation towards the solution that we KNOW exists to help mitigate fear and spread of contagion?”

Digital health. Virtual care. Telemedicine. All synonyms for the solution that’s been right in front of us for decades now, though underutilized and, frankly, underestimated. …

As a child I was chronically sick, interacting with the healthcare system early and often. Growing up in a rural Texas town, my access to specialized care was limited — so it wasn’t until my symptoms exacerbated over 15 years that I finally discovered I had an autoimmune disease.

Sadly, I’m not alone in my all-too-long journey to diagnosis and help. Whether in a rural town with limited provider options, an underserved community without quality clinics, or a bustling metropolis with shockingly few available doctor’s appointments, too many people cannot access the care they need, when they need it.

That’s where Digital Health comes in. It’s the promise of technology plus human ingenuity — and it has the power to revolutionize the way we access care. By leveraging tech-enabled capabilities, plus access to Big Data, we can finally connect the right patient with the right insights, via the right healthcare provider, at the right time — improving patient experiences and outcomes. …