In recent years, the growth of telemedicine and other technologies has created new opportunities to increase access to health care for patients in underserved or rural areas and to allow them to more easily connect with medical experts. Physicians are increasingly able to use telemedicine to practice in multiple states. In an effort to maximize the potential of these new health care advances, state medical boards in 2013 began actively discussing the idea of creating an interstate physician licensure compact that could help expand access to health care for patients by streamlining traditional medical-license application processes. The idea was embraced by a diverse range of state boards, and over the next several years the groundwork was laid for the creation of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact. With assistance from the Federation of State Medical Boards, a group of state medical board executives, administrators and attorneys drafted a model compact – which was introduced publicly in the fall of 2014. State legislatures soon began adopting it, and in early 2017, the Compact became operational. More than half of U.S. states, the District of Columbia and the Territory of Guam are now participating in the Compact, and other states are in the process of introducing legislation to adopt it.