Healthcare Professional Perceptions and Opinions Concerning Telehealth Pre and Post the COVID-19 Pandemic
Open Access
- Author:
- King, Katherine
- Area of Honors:
- Health Policy and Administration
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Jessica Williams, Thesis Supervisor
Selena E Ortiz, Thesis Honors Advisor
Thomas Montgomery Knarr, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- telehealth
providers
healthcare professionals - Abstract:
- PURPOSE: Many scholarly articles and journals published about telehealth discuss patient demographics, the use of virtual visits for chronic conditions, and patient perceptions of virtual care. A plethora of information is available concerning the impact of telehealth on patients’ feelings toward this new wave of virtual healthcare, however, the opinions of healthcare providers and administrators are lacking. The purpose of this study is to better understand how different healthcare providers such as doctors, nurses, and healthcare administrators perceive telehealth before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. A secondary aim is to understand how much providers use telehealth before and after the pandemic and to determine whether the ways in which they use it has changed. Moreover, this study seeks to understand what providers believe is necessary for the sustained growth of telehealth. This study hypothesizes that providers will have incorporated telehealth more into their work post-pandemic (more frequent use and more modalities) and will have relatively positive feelings toward such use. However, we also anticipate that providers will also have many suggestions for improvement. Interview data information will be collected to address the research aims. METHODS: 13 informational interviews were conducted with healthcare professionals, including nurses, physicians, and administrators. The inclusion criteria that had to be met by all participants included age (that they are 18 years or older), having worked in healthcare for at least one year, and speaking English. All 13 participants were found and selected via the Principal Investigator’s professional network, as well as through snowball sampling. Once meeting all criteria, participants engaged in a 30-minute informational interview via Zoom on the topic of ii telehealth care. The interview consisted of multiple-choice and free-response questions. All multiple-choice questions were analyzed quantitatively, and all open-ended responses were coded qualitatively to produce the study results. RESULTS: Most of the healthcare professionals in this study define telehealth to include phone calls, video calls, texting/online messaging, and e-mailing. Video calls are the most frequently used in their roles. Pre- COVID-19, most participants had neutral feelings toward telehealth, but after the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, most participants strongly like telehealth care. When analyzing the qualitative component of this study, multiple key themes were identified. One theme was accessibility for both patients and providers, which encompasses convenience, physical access, equity, reimbursement, and insurance issues. Another identified theme was acceptance. Patient and provider buy-in, technology use, and education all fall under this category. Lastly, clinical concerns, which encompasses condition-specific use, lack of physical exams, and delay of diagnosis, were identified as a key theme. DISCUSSION: The findings of this study show that providers have incorporated telehealth in their care delivery. All participants were overall supportive of telehealth care but had suggestions for improvement. Participants had differing opinions on certain topics relating to telehealth such as their personal experiences, the quality of care received by patients, and equity concerns. The largest strength of this study is the use of both quantitative and qualitative data, while some limitations are the small sample size as well as the lack of diversity in the sample. Future research should be done to study virtual care medical training, care coordination, and equity relating to telehealth care. Lastly, policy concerns about the emergency use of telehealth will need to be monitored as this will greatly affect telehealth.