Opportunities to Alleviate the Health Care Workforce Crisis: Telehealth and Emerging Technologies

The U.S. health care system is facing a severe and worsening workforce crisis, characterized by a shortage of providers, geographic maldistribution of providers, and record levels of burnout. Telehealth is a promising solution to mitigate the workforce crisis. Telehealth modalities—in particular, virtual nursing, eConsults, and video visits—offer innovative ways to extend the current workforce, expand the geographic reach of providers, and maintain the existing workforce by reducing burnout and improving work-life balance. However, despite this potential, many telehealth programs are sub-scale due to limited coverage and reimbursement, insufficiently robust evidence, cultural barriers around adopting new technology, and other factors.

Even at full scale, telehealth alone will not meaningfully address the workforce crisis. Other emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), have the potential to significantly unlock workforce capacity. AI can assist, augment, and automate certain activities currently performed by clinical and administrative staff, thereby increasing efficiency and improving access. AI tools can streamline clinical documentation, enhance decision support, and automate routine administrative tasks, allowing providers to focus on patient care. AI tools can also be used to accelerate the adoption and impact of promising telehealth models by enabling significant gains in efficiency through automation.

This was developed by Manatt Health and the National Telehealth Center of Excellence at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) as a part of a collaboration to understand and describe opportunities for telehealth to address the emerging health care workforce crisis. Manatt and MUSC conducted background research, interviewed 20 telehealth and workforce leaders, and convened these experts for an in-person expert roundtable in Washington, D.C., in February 2025. Participants represented a diverse array of health systems, provider associations, health technology companies, and workforce researchers. The findings and opportunities outlined in this report represent a combination of research and the input provided by participants. The views expressed here are solely those of Manatt Health and MUSC.