Changes in Patient Characteristics and Practice Outcomes of a Tele-Urgent Care Clinic Pre- and Post-COVID-19 Telehealth Policy Expansions.
Introduction The coronavirus 2019 pandemic (COVID-19) has resulted in major changes in lifestyle practices and healthcare delivery. The goal of this study was to examine changes in practice and service outcomes in a telehealth program before and after the federal and private telehealth policy expans...
| Publicado en: | Perspectives in Health Information Management Vol. 19; no. 2; pp. 109 - 120 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , , , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
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American Health Information Management Association
Spring2022
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=157531957&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 157531957 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 15594122 2QEL jtl: Perspectives in Health Information Management issn: 15594122 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Spring2022 vid: 19 iid: 2 pid: 6825 pub: American Health Information Management Association place: Chicago, Illinois artinfo: ui: 157531957 157531957 157531957 157531957 ppf: 109 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Changes in Patient Characteristics and Practice Outcomes of a Tele-Urgent Care Clinic Pre- and Post-COVID-19 Telehealth Policy Expansions. aug: au: Khairat, Saif Yuxiao Yao Coleman, Cameron McDaniel, Philip Edson, Barbara Shea, Christopher M. affil: Associate professor for the Carolina Health Informatics Program in the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sug: subj: COVID-19 Pandemic Telehealth Health Policy Telemedicine Patient Care Outcomes (Health Care) Human Cross Sectional Studies Descriptive Statistics Data Analysis Software Chi Square Test Descriptive Research Male Female Young Adult Adult Middle Age Adult: 19-44 years Middle Aged: 45-64 years Male Female ab: Introduction The coronavirus 2019 pandemic (COVID-19) has resulted in major changes in lifestyle practices and healthcare delivery. The goal of this study was to examine changes in practice and service outcomes in a telehealth program before and after the federal and private telehealth policy expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings are particularly useful to understand what may be needed to overcome telehealth challenges in future disasters. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of virtual visits through a statewide telehealth center embedded in a large academic healthcare system. Primary outcomes of this study were changes in telehealth visits pre- and post-policy expansions among at-riskpopulations. Results A total of 2,132 telehealth visits were conducted: 1,530(71.8 percent) patients were female, 1,561(73.2 percent) were between the ages 18-50, 1,576(74 percent) were uninsured, and 1,225(57.5 percent) were from rural regions. The average number of telehealth visits per day increased from 14 to 33 visits post-expansion. A significant change in patient characteristicswas found among senior, uninsured, and rural patients after the telehealth expansion. There was an 11 percent decrease in telehealth visits from very high vulnerability regions postexpansion compared to pre-expansion. There was a 15 percent decrease in visits resulting in prescription post-expansion (p-value<0.01). Conclusions COVID-19 policy expansions expanded telehealth utilization among at-riskpopulations such as senior, uninsured, and rural patients while decompressing hospitals and emergency rooms and maintaining positive patient experiences. Further regulations are needed around virtual visits unintended consequences, software certification, and guidelines for workforce training. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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