RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Telemedicine, the current COVID-19 pandemic and the future: a narrative review and perspectives moving forward in the USA JF Family Medicine and Community Health JO Fam Med Com Health FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd SP e000530 DO 10.1136/fmch-2020-000530 VO 8 IS 3 A1 Asim Kichloo A1 Michael Albosta A1 Kirk Dettloff A1 Farah Wani A1 Zain El-Amir A1 Jagmeet Singh A1 Michael Aljadah A1 Raja Chandra Chakinala A1 Ashok Kumar Kanugula A1 Shantanu Solanki A1 Savneek Chugh YR 2020 UL http://fmch.bmj.com/content/8/3/e000530.abstract AB A narrative review was conducted to examine the current state of the utilisation of telemedicine amid the current COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate the benefits of continuing telemedicine usage in the future. A literature review was performed for articles related to telemedicine. Databases including PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library and Ovid MEDLINE were searched. Three reviewers independently performed article selection based on relevance to our topic. We included all articles between 1990 and 2020 related to telemedicine using the following keywords: ‘telemedicine’, ‘telehealth’, ‘policy’, ‘COVID-19’, ‘regulation’, ‘rural’, ‘physical examination’, ‘future’. A total of 60 articles were identified, and through careful selection we narrowed the final number of articles to 42 based on relevance to our topic. Telemedicine has been rapidly evolving over the past several decades. Issues with regulation and reimbursement have prevented its full immersion into the healthcare system. During the current pandemic, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services have expanded access to telemedicine services. The advantages of telemedicine moving forward include its cost-effectiveness, ability to extend access to specialty services and its potential to help mitigate the looming physician shortage. Disadvantages include lack of available technological resources in certain parts of the country, issues with security of patient data, and challenges in performing the traditional patient examination. It is critically important that changes are made to fully immerse telemedicine services into the healthcare landscape in order to be prepared for future pandemics as well as to reap the benefits of this service in the future.