Executive Interview Series: Q&A with Joel E. Barthelemy, CEO of GlobalMed

First Page Sage: Telehealth exploded during the pandemic and has since become crowded with competitors. What does GlobalMed offer that a standard video visit simply cannot?

Joel E. Barthelemy: Often, when people hear the word “telehealth,” they picture a basic video call where a patient is just describing their symptoms to a provider. What they don’t picture is getting something that’s comparable to an in-person examination, but that’s what GlobalMed offers. Our integrated telemedicine platforms combine FDA-cleared diagnostic devices with secure, enterprise-grade software into a complete care ecosystem. That means that when a physician uses our system, they can receive real-time ECG data, digital stethoscope auscultation, medical-grade wound imaging, and comprehensive vital metrics. That advanced level of care leads to better patient outcomes.

First Page Sage: GlobalMed serves some of the most demanding clients in the world, including the VA, DoD, and the White House. How does serving those environments shape the technology you bring to broader healthcare markets?

Barthelemy: It forces excellence at every level. There’s no room for “mostly works” when you’re protecting a President’s health or treating a combat-wounded veteran in a remote military installation.

Every GlobalMed system operates under military-grade encryption, full HIPAA compliance, and Authority to Operate certifications that most telehealth competitors simply cannot achieve. We’re SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and hold ISO 13485 certification. On top of that, our hardware is built to operate in submarines, disaster zones, and austere environments where civilian platforms would fail.

That engineering discipline doesn’t stay confined to government contracts. It flows into every solution we deploy, whether that’s a rural critical access hospital, a large health system, or an enterprise wellness program. Our clients in the private sector get the same zero-failure standard we deliver to the most security-sensitive healthcare environments on Earth.

First Page Sage: Rural healthcare access is a growing crisis in America. How is GlobalMed’s technology addressing the gap between where specialists are and where patients actually live?

Barthelemy: In North Dakota, a young Veteran diagnosed with Complex PTSD was driving hours across the Great Plains in brutal winter conditions just to see a psychiatrist, because his local community-based outpatient clinic had no behavioral health services on staff. When the VA’s National Telemental Health Center deployed GlobalMed’s telemedicine stations at that clinic, he could finally see a psychiatrist without leaving his community.

That’s one patient, but the VA’s broader deployment tells a more complete story. The VA’s National Telemental Health Center used GlobalMed solutions to connect Veterans in areas without local behavioral health services to expert psychiatric care, so Veterans could see a psychiatrist from their own Community Based Outpatient Clinic rather than driving hours each way. The eNcounter® platform connects rural clinic equipment to remote specialists in real time, with diagnostic data and patient records available through a unified system.

For settings without a fixed clinic infrastructure, the Transportable Exam Backpack extends that same capability into the field. Coplin Health in West Virginia uses four of these units to deliver primary care across rural communities where a permanent facility isn’t viable. In Ecuador, a healthcare organization uses two units to bring diabetes care directly to rural patients who have no prior access to specialist services. In each case, the combination of portable diagnostic hardware and the eNcounter® platform is what makes the care clinically meaningful rather than just a video call.

First Page Sage: There’s growing interest in integrating conventional medicine with preventive and holistic care approaches. How does GlobalMed’s platform support that kind of comprehensive, whole-person care delivery?

Barthelemy: The practical challenge for any provider trying to deliver whole-person care is visibility. If a patient is seeing a primary care physician, a behavioral health provider, and a specialist, each provider is typically working from an incomplete picture of what the others are doing.

GlobalMed’s eNcounter platform integrates with most major EHR systems, which means a provider conducting a virtual consultation can access lab results, specialist notes, and patient-reported outcomes in one place rather than working from a partial record. When you layer in tools like iAmbientHealth, which passively monitors vitals, sleep patterns, and movement at home, or Canary Speech, which objectively screens for behavioral and cognitive health changes during consultations, providers get a broader view of how a patient is actually functioning day to day, not just what their numbers look like during a clinic visit.

That data continuity matters when someone is managing multiple conditions or combining conventional treatment with preventive approaches. A cardiologist reviewing remote monitoring data alongside behavioral health notes can adjust a treatment plan with more context than a standard fifteen-minute appointment provides. The platform doesn’t require care teams to change how they practice. Instead, it gives them more complete information to work with.

First Page Sage: What should healthcare executives and organizational leaders be thinking about as they evaluate virtual care investments for the next five years?

Barthelemy: Start by asking whether the technology delivers evidence, not just access.

The telehealth market is full of platforms that make virtual visits possible. What they can’t all deliver is the clinical-grade diagnostic data that makes those visits meaningful. Any platform can put a doctor and patient on a screen together, but very few can equip that physician with the real-time clinical information needed to make confident, accurate diagnoses remotely.

Secondly, healthcare leaders should also think beyond the immediate use case. The organizations that have invested in GlobalMed’s enterprise-grade infrastructure aren’t just solving today’s access problem. They’re building platforms capable of supporting AI-assisted diagnostics, continuous remote patient monitoring, and integrated care coordination as those capabilities mature.

The other critical consideration is trust. Healthcare runs on it. Patients trust that their data is protected, clinicians trust that the diagnostic information they’re receiving is accurate, and health systems trust that the technology won’t fail when it matters most.

GlobalMed is a leader in virtual care because we’ve spent over two decades earning that trust in the most unforgiving healthcare environments on Earth. For leaders evaluating virtual care investments, the question isn’t just what a platform can do today. It’s whether the company behind it has the proven track record to deliver when the stakes are highest.