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Urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: Findings from a multi-site impact study

INTRODUCTION: The global pandemic has raised awareness of the need for alternative ways to deliver care, notably telehealth. Prior to this study, research has been mixed on its effectiveness and impact on downstream utilization, especially for seniors. Our multi-institution study of more than 300,00...

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Autores principales: Bernstein, Paul, Ko, Kelly J, Israni, Juhi, Cronin, Alexandria O, Kurliand, Michael M, Shi, Jiaxiao M, Chung, Joanie, Borgo, Lina, Reed, Amanda, Kosten, Larissa, Chang, Anna Marie, Sites, Frank D, Funahashi, Tadashi, Agha, Zia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10394951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33866894
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357633X211004321
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author Bernstein, Paul
Ko, Kelly J
Israni, Juhi
Cronin, Alexandria O
Kurliand, Michael M
Shi, Jiaxiao M
Chung, Joanie
Borgo, Lina
Reed, Amanda
Kosten, Larissa
Chang, Anna Marie
Sites, Frank D
Funahashi, Tadashi
Agha, Zia
author_facet Bernstein, Paul
Ko, Kelly J
Israni, Juhi
Cronin, Alexandria O
Kurliand, Michael M
Shi, Jiaxiao M
Chung, Joanie
Borgo, Lina
Reed, Amanda
Kosten, Larissa
Chang, Anna Marie
Sites, Frank D
Funahashi, Tadashi
Agha, Zia
author_sort Bernstein, Paul
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: The global pandemic has raised awareness of the need for alternative ways to deliver care, notably telehealth. Prior to this study, research has been mixed on its effectiveness and impact on downstream utilization, especially for seniors. Our multi-institution study of more than 300,000 telehealth visits for seniors evaluates the clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization for urgent and non-emergent symptoms. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study from November 2015 to March 2019, leveraging different models of telehealth from three health systems, comparing them to in-person visits for urgent and non-emergent needs of seniors based on International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition diagnoses. The study population was adults aged 60 years or older who had access to telehealth and were affiliated with and resided in the geographic region of the healthcare organization providing telehealth. The primary outcomes of interest were visit resolution and episodes of care for those that required follow-up. RESULTS: In total, 313,516 telehealth visits were analysed across three healthcare organizations. Telehealth encounters were successful in resolving urgent and non-emergent needs in 84.0–86.7% of cases. When visits required follow-up, over 95% were resolved in less than three visits for both telehealth and in-person cohorts. DISCUSSION: While in-person visits have traditionally been the gold standard, our results suggest that when deployed within the confines of a patient’s existing primary care and health system provider, telehealth can be an effective alternative to in-person care for urgent and non-emergent needs of seniors without increasing downstream utilization.
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spelling pubmed-103949512023-08-03 Urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: Findings from a multi-site impact study Bernstein, Paul Ko, Kelly J Israni, Juhi Cronin, Alexandria O Kurliand, Michael M Shi, Jiaxiao M Chung, Joanie Borgo, Lina Reed, Amanda Kosten, Larissa Chang, Anna Marie Sites, Frank D Funahashi, Tadashi Agha, Zia J Telemed Telecare RESEARCH/Original Articles INTRODUCTION: The global pandemic has raised awareness of the need for alternative ways to deliver care, notably telehealth. Prior to this study, research has been mixed on its effectiveness and impact on downstream utilization, especially for seniors. Our multi-institution study of more than 300,000 telehealth visits for seniors evaluates the clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization for urgent and non-emergent symptoms. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study from November 2015 to March 2019, leveraging different models of telehealth from three health systems, comparing them to in-person visits for urgent and non-emergent needs of seniors based on International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition diagnoses. The study population was adults aged 60 years or older who had access to telehealth and were affiliated with and resided in the geographic region of the healthcare organization providing telehealth. The primary outcomes of interest were visit resolution and episodes of care for those that required follow-up. RESULTS: In total, 313,516 telehealth visits were analysed across three healthcare organizations. Telehealth encounters were successful in resolving urgent and non-emergent needs in 84.0–86.7% of cases. When visits required follow-up, over 95% were resolved in less than three visits for both telehealth and in-person cohorts. DISCUSSION: While in-person visits have traditionally been the gold standard, our results suggest that when deployed within the confines of a patient’s existing primary care and health system provider, telehealth can be an effective alternative to in-person care for urgent and non-emergent needs of seniors without increasing downstream utilization. SAGE Publications 2021-04-17 2023-08 /pmc/articles/PMC10394951/ /pubmed/33866894 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357633X211004321 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle RESEARCH/Original Articles
Bernstein, Paul
Ko, Kelly J
Israni, Juhi
Cronin, Alexandria O
Kurliand, Michael M
Shi, Jiaxiao M
Chung, Joanie
Borgo, Lina
Reed, Amanda
Kosten, Larissa
Chang, Anna Marie
Sites, Frank D
Funahashi, Tadashi
Agha, Zia
Urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: Findings from a multi-site impact study
title Urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: Findings from a multi-site impact study
title_full Urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: Findings from a multi-site impact study
title_fullStr Urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: Findings from a multi-site impact study
title_full_unstemmed Urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: Findings from a multi-site impact study
title_short Urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: Findings from a multi-site impact study
title_sort urgent and non-emergent telehealth care for seniors: findings from a multi-site impact study
topic RESEARCH/Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10394951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33866894
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357633X211004321
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