News Release
Audio-Only Telehealth Remains Common at Safety Net Health Clinics; Trend Raises Questions About Quality
Mar 15, 2022
In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, widespread social-distancing efforts suspended much of the delivery of nonurgent health care. Telehealth proved to be a viable alternative to in-person care, at least on a temporary basis, and utilization skyrocketed. Researchers investigated changes in telehealth utilization and health center staff experiences with implementation.
Results from the Connected Care Accelerator Initiative
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In early 2020, as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic emerged, widespread social-distancing efforts suspended much of the delivery of nonurgent health care. Telehealth proved to be a viable alternative to in-person care, at least on a temporary basis, and utilization skyrocketed. Many Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) serving low-income patients started delivering telehealth visits in high volume in March 2020 to help maintain access to care.
This sudden and dramatic change in health care delivery posed numerous challenges. Health centers had to quickly make changes to technology, workflows, and staffing to accommodate telehealth visits. To support health centers in these efforts, the California Health Care Foundation established the Connected Care Accelerator (CCA) program, a quality improvement initiative that was launched in July 2020.
RAND researchers evaluated the progress of FQHCs that participated in the CCA initiative by investigating changes in telehealth utilization and health center staff experiences with implementation. In this report, researchers review recent literature on telehealth implementation in safety net settings. They also present new information on the experiences of the 45 CCA health centers, drawing from data on visit trends, interviews with health center leaders, and surveys of health center providers and staff. Telehealth has the potential to increase access to care and deliver care that is more convenient and patient-centered; however, ongoing research is needed to ensure that telehealth is implemented in a way that ensures high-quality care and health equity.
Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
Summary of Key Findings from the Research Literature
Chapter Three
Trends in Telehealth Use in Connected Care Accelerator Health Centers: Results from Quantitative Analyses
Chapter Four
Health Center Leaders' Perceptions of Telehealth Implementation: Results from Semistructured Interviews
Chapter Five
Provider and Staff Attitudes About Telehealth: Results from Surveys
Chapter Six
Implications for Policy, Practice, and Future Study
This research was funded by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) and conducted by the Access and Delivery Program within RAND Health Care.
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