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COVID-19 has led to a boom in telehealth, with some health care facilities seeing an increase in its use by as much as 8,000%. This shift happened quickly and unexpectedly and has left many people asking whether telehealth is really as good as in-person care. Over the last decade, I’ve studied telehealth as a Ph.D. researcher while using it as a registered nurse and advanced practice nurse. Telehealth is the use of phone, video, internet and technology to perform health care, and when done right, it can be just as effective as in-person health care. But as many patients and health care professionals switch to telehealth for the first time, there will inevitably be a learning curve as people adapt to this new system. So how does a patient or a provider make sure they are using telehealth...

Thunderstorms are common across North America, especially in warm weather months. About 10% of them become severe, meaning they produce hail 1 inch or greater in diameter, winds gusting in excess of 50 knots (57.5 miles per hour), or a tornado. The U.S. recently has experienced two rarer events: organized lines of thunderstorms with widespread damaging winds, known as derechos. Derechos occur fairly regularly over large parts of the U.S. each year, most commonly from April through August. Dennis Cain/NOAA Derechos occur mainly across the central and eastern U.S., where many locations are affected one to two times per year on average. They can produce significant damage to structures and sometimes cause “blowdowns” of millions of trees. Pennsylvania and New Jersey received the brunt of a d...