Yes, Telemedicine Is Working in Obesity Care
The unmet need for delivering obesity care at scale is indisputably great. Just thinking about it is daunting because the need is so great. It will require new thinking. One thread of that new thinking is all of the innovation in telemedicine that’s unfolding before our eyes. In Obesity this month, we see yet another publication that tells us telemedicine can be an effective and safe tool for delivering obesity care with advanced medicines like semaglutide.
Data from 655 Patients on the Ro Platform
This new data comes from a cohort of patients using the Ro telemedicine platform between December 2022 and June 2023. It was a random sample drawn from 4,500 who initiated semaglutide therapy in that timeframe. They were all patients who reported weight outcomes within two weeks of week 68 after starting therapy.
Real World Outcomes
The results are pretty straightforward. Obesity medicine physician Beverly Tchang is the lead author and she writes:
“Our study adds to the growing body of evidence that telehealth can achieve outcomes seen in clinical trials and may be particularly well-suited to intervene earlier in a disease.”
In their paper, Tchang et al says telehealth is ready to be a practical tool to address obesity to provide care on a large scale, delivered with regular follow-up, AE monitoring, and appropriate medication adjustments to increase access without compromising safety.
Yes, this is a tool for obesity care that is quickly maturing.
Click here for the new study, here and here for more perspective on telehealth in obesity care.
Telemedicine Circa 1925, cover illustration for Science and Invention Magazine / Wikimedia Commons
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December 16, 2025
December 19, 2025 at 11:02 am, Valerie O'Hara said:
So appreciate this publication – telemedicine is a vital tool for increasing access to care! Obesity management can effectively be delivered using this model… for kids, we expanded our early comprehensive obesity clinic by adding telemedicine here in Maine for kids in 2015- so important !!