Primary telehealth is becoming increasingly international and penetration rates are climbing fast.

Having built national platforms, operators such as KRY and Min Doktor in Sweden and Medgate in Switzerland are entering new markets. Medgate already has partners in Indonesia, Philippines and the Gulf.  KRY and Min Doktor are targeting Germany and moving into other countries, such as the UK. Doctrin, which sells to big hospital groups such as Capio, has also gone international.

Penetration rates are already surprisingly high. We reckon that in Switzerland, telehealth already accounts for 7% of all primary care sessions with a figure of 4% in Sweden. The UK, where babylon is the largest player, lags far behind.

What is also extraordinary is the range of ways in which primary telehealth is already delivered. Several players have AI front-end apps, sometimes followed by asynchronous texting, before the patient has a direct face-to-face session with a human being. Others dislike putting a patient straight in-front of AI and want to keep them in touch with primary care physicians.

AI diagnostics are also developing fast. AdaHealth in Berlin claims that its app has 4-5m regular users, defined as 3-4 sessions a year. Give it a go. We suspect that it is already more accurate and powerful than most primary physicians.

The big question is how will public payors respond to all this. We suspect that the answer is S-L-O-W-L-Y. We are about to see an unedifying decade of hard-fought rearguard actions from the medical profession. But even doctors won’t be able to ignore the efficiency gains and benefits of better diagnosis forever.

We’re in the process of tracking telemedicine across the whole of Europe and the Middle East, please get in touch if your company is relevant.