Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Mapping virtual care
Digital | Healthcare
February 17, 2023 – Telehealthcare adoption remains much higher than prepandemic levels, but adoption hasn’t been uniform across geographical locations. Partner Alex Harris and coauthors estimate that more than 50 million in-person visits per year could be converted to virtual or telemedicine visits if adoption were extended equally across patient segments. In general, virtual-healthcare adoption is higher in urban areas than rural areas, while patient segments with limited access to in-person care, such as rural counties, still have relatively fewer virtual visits.
Interactive
To read the article, see “Is virtual care delivering on its promise of improving access?,” January 9, 2023.
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Visual form
Choropleth map.
Layout / body structure
The default view fills the page with a US map and uses a toggle at the top right to switch between rural and urban zip codes. Reader scans the national map, then uses the color scale and the toggle to compare how adoption changes by location type.
What is being compared
It compares virtual-healthcare visits across US zip codes, with the main comparison split between rural and urban areas.
Measurement system
The values are shown as the percent of total healthcare visits that are virtual, encoded by a light-to-dark color ramp on the map.
Visible structure inside the graphic
The map shades individual zip-code regions, with gray areas for places outside the selected classification and pink for no data. Insets for Alaska and Hawaii sit beneath the main map, and the color bar shows a three-step scale around 10, 20, and 30 percent.
Main takeaway from the visual
The emphasizes uneven adoption rather than a single national average. Rural and urban areas show clusters of higher and lower virtual-care use, so access remains patchy across the country instead of evenly distributed.
Key standout values or extremes
The map legend tops out around the low 30 percent range, and the article framing notes that more than 50 million in-person visits per year could be converted to virtual care if adoption expanded evenly across patient segments.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
The reader can switch between rural and urban views with the toggle, which changes which zip codes are highlighted and makes the contrast in adoption patterns the core behavior on the page.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart is the full visual on this page.