Telemedicine Is Revolutionizing Prison Health Care
Improvements in access enabled by telemedicine can literally be a matter of life and death
Over the past few years, telemedicine — a term broadly used to describe any method of remotely accessing medical care, including over the phone, through email, or via video chat — has gone from a sci-fi proposition to an increasingly ordinary part of health care.
In many parts of the country, it’s now possible to get birth control, HIV preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP), dermatological care, erectile dysfunction medications, therapy, and even UTI treatments without ever entering a doctor’s office. And telemedicine experts are hopeful that even more services will become widely available over the coming years, making accessing a medical professional as easy as opening an app.
But there’s a sector where telemedicine has been a part of the landscape for several decades: prisons. While prisons aren’t known for being on the cutting edge of tech, the harsh realities of prison health care — where many inmates have complicated medical needs and getting access to an offsite doctor can be a lengthy and even traumatic process — have inspired many places to get creative about how their prisoners access much-needed care.
