The purpose of this poster presentation is to raise awareness within the healthcare community of the importance an educational intervention has on providers use of telehealth services. The learning objectives include understanding why telehealth is important within the primary care setting, understanding provider satisfaction with telehealth and understanding how education affects a provider’s use of telehealth. Since the beginning of the coronavirus (COVID) pandemic of 2019, the delivery of medical care has drastically changed (Hirko et al., 2020). Social distancing that occurred with the COVID pandemic necessitated the need for a different way to safely provide care because direct patient care was not feasible. Therefore, the adoption of telehealth, modern technology that delivers healthcare services to patients located in a different location than healthcare staff, drastically increased. This type of care has many benefits for patients including, but not limited to, decreased travel costs, decreased time away from work, easier accessibility for those with mobility needs, and increased access to care with the preservation of standard appointments for more complex needs (Harvard Health Publishing, 2020). Although this type of care is beneficial, future use remains uncertain with the resolution of the pandemic and is dependent on awareness of the benefits of telehealth by providers (Kissi et al., 2020). A study was conducted to determine the impact of a 45-minute telehealth educational intervention on provider satisfaction and intent to use telehealth. The providers were assessed before and after the intervention with a tool that included questions regarding telehealth use, telehealth satisfaction, and intent to use telehealth in future practice. Although statistical significance was not achieved, results of the surveys overwhelming showed that providers felt telehealth was beneficial and that they intended to continue using this type of care in the future. This poster presentation will discuss in depth the background information regarding telehealth, the benefits of this type of visit, the importance of telehealth education, details regarding the educational intervention utilized in the project, details regarding the survey used before and after the intervention, results of the surveys, and implications for practice and future research.
References
1) Harvard Health Publishing. (2020). Telehealth: The advantages and disadvantages. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/telehealth-the-advantages-and-disadvantages
2) Hirko, K.A., Kerver, J.M, Ford, S., Szafranski, C., Beckett, J., Kitchen, C., & Wendling, A.L. (2020). Telehealth in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for rural health disparities. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 27(11), 1816-1818. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa156
3) Kissi, J., Dai, B., Dogbe, C. S., & Banahene, J. (2020). Predictive factors of physicians’ satisfaction with telemedicine services acceptance. Health Informatics Journal, 26(3), 1866-1880. https://doi.org/10.1177/1460458219892162