Telehealth
The objective of restructuring the American health care system was to increase quality and access to care and to minimize cost from which a telehealth setting was born.
The earliest form of telehealth was the transmission of heart sounds through the telephone in 1878. In the 1990s, the internet opened up new possibilities. The important impetus for telehealth came with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which included the goal of increasing digital connectivity. The implementation of meaningful use, the federal electronic health record incentive program, the Affordable Care Act, and additional forces pushed for increased telehealth capabilities.7 In March 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed, providing further support for the expansion of telehealth (Fant et al., 2021, p. 17).