Telehealth as Healthcare Infrastructure
Johannes Schildt & Claes Ruth, CEO and CFO of Kry, on the AI future of telehealth
Telehealth became infrastructure once health systems realized it was not a niche convenience layer, but a way to keep primary care moving when clinics were full, staff were short, and patients were stuck waiting. In Kry’s model, that means a patient can open the app, answer intake questions, upload photos, speak to a clinician quickly, get a prescription, lab order, or specialist referral, and then be routed into in person care only when needed. That turns telehealth from a standalone visit into a pressure relief valve for the whole system.
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The bottleneck has shifted from patient demand to clinical supply. Kry says reimbursement and market access are now broadly in place across multiple European markets, while the harder problem is staffing enough clinicians and integrating with local care systems, prescription rails, and public payer workflows.
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This works best when telehealth is tied to the rest of care delivery. Kry links video visits to physical clinics, lab partners, and local referral pathways, because a sore throat can stay digital but blood draws, stitches, and follow up exams still need a physical network behind the screen.
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The economic logic is simple. Public systems use telehealth to absorb routine demand earlier and cheaper, instead of letting access problems spill into urgent care and emergency departments. NHS England has continued to report multi million patient backlogs, which makes faster front door triage and treatment capacity strategically valuable.
Over the next decade, telehealth is likely to become the default entry point for a growing share of primary care, with AI handling more intake, documentation, and routing before a doctor joins. The winners will be operators that combine software, clinician networks, payer contracts, and physical follow through into one system that can actually carry patient demand at national scale.