Definition of Telehealth
Telehealth is the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to provide and support clinical healthcare, patient education, and health administration at a distance. It encompasses a broad range of remote healthcare services — live video consultations, asynchronous store-and-forward communication, remote patient monitoring, and mobile health applications.
The terms telehealth and telemedicine are often used interchangeably, but there’s a distinction. Telemedicine refers specifically to remote clinical services — a doctor diagnosing and treating a patient via video. Telehealth is the broader category that includes telemedicine plus non-clinical services like provider training, administrative meetings, and continuing medical education delivered remotely.
For healthcare IT teams, telehealth means building or integrating platforms that support synchronous video visits, EHR documentation within the virtual encounter, e-prescribing, scheduling, patient portal integration, billing with telehealth-specific CPT codes, and HIPAA-compliant communication channels.
Telehealth adoption accelerated dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, when CMS expanded reimbursement for virtual visits and relaxed geographic and originating site restrictions. Many of those expansions have been extended or made permanent, establishing telehealth as a lasting component of healthcare delivery.
In simple terms: Telehealth is remote healthcare delivery using technology — and building a compliant, integrated telehealth platform requires connecting video, clinical documentation, billing, and patient engagement into a single workflow.
How Telehealth Works in Healthcare
Telehealth platforms operate across the full encounter lifecycle — scheduling, patient intake, clinical visit, documentation, prescribing, and billing.
Key Telehealth Standards and Specifications
Consumer video platforms like FaceTime, Zoom (standard version), and Google Meet are not HIPAA-compliant by default. HIPAA-compliant telehealth requires purpose-built or properly configured platforms with BAA coverage.
Implementation Considerations
Building or deploying a telehealth platform involves video infrastructure, EHR integration, regulatory compliance, and user experience design.
Behavioral health is the largest telehealth use case. Mental health and substance use treatment account for a disproportionate share of telehealth visits. Platforms serving behavioral health need to support longer session durations, 42 CFR Part 2 privacy protections for substance use records, group therapy video capabilities, and integration with behavioral health-specific EHR documentation templates.
How Taction Helps with Telehealth
At Taction, our team builds and integrates telehealth platforms for healthcare organizations, digital health startups, and health IT vendors.
What we do:
Whether you’re launching a new telehealth program, integrating telehealth into an existing EHR, or building a digital health product with virtual care capabilities, our healthcare engineering team delivers the clinical workflow design and technical integration these platforms demand.