The Medical Virtualist: Is Pediatric Patient Care Using Telemedicine, a New Specialty?

Telemedicine (TM) is undergoing unprecedented growth that is being driven by numerous factors, one of which is patient preference. Providers who use this tool to deliver health care tend to be early adoptors of new technology, but do they also represent a nascent specialty of pediatric virtualist? We believe that such practitioners, although exhibiting characteristics common to all early adopters, represent the cutting edge of what will become routine medical care. They tend to engage in less small talk with patients, focus more on efficient problem-solving, and collect less data while achieving patient outcomes and satisfaction that are as good as, or possibly even better than, their colleagues who practice in traditional settings. In doing so, they are leading the way for all providers to deliver care to patients using this new technology. Eventually, we feel that medical encounters using TM will be referred to simply as "patient care." [Pediatr Ann. 2019;48(6):e243-e248.]. Copyright 2019, SLACK Incorporated.