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Availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

INTRODUCTION: The expanded capacity of syringe services programs (SSPs) in the USA to integrate telehealth services was largely related to flexibility of buprenorphine prescription in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. SSPs demonstrated the potential of using telehealth to reach participants with bo...

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Autores principales: Bartholomew, Tyler S., Tookes, Hansel E., Chueng, Teresa A., Bluthenthal, Ricky N., Wenger, Lynn D., Kral, Alex H., Lambdin, Barrot H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10475193/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37660029
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-023-00861-3
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author Bartholomew, Tyler S.
Tookes, Hansel E.
Chueng, Teresa A.
Bluthenthal, Ricky N.
Wenger, Lynn D.
Kral, Alex H.
Lambdin, Barrot H.
author_facet Bartholomew, Tyler S.
Tookes, Hansel E.
Chueng, Teresa A.
Bluthenthal, Ricky N.
Wenger, Lynn D.
Kral, Alex H.
Lambdin, Barrot H.
author_sort Bartholomew, Tyler S.
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: The expanded capacity of syringe services programs (SSPs) in the USA to integrate telehealth services was largely related to flexibility of buprenorphine prescription in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. SSPs demonstrated the potential of using telehealth to reach participants with both medical and non-medical services. The present study examines the implementation of medical and non-medical telehealth-based health services in 2020 at SSPs in the USA and organizational characteristics associated with adopting specific telehealth services. METHODS: We administered a cross-sectional survey among all known SSPs operating in the USA as of 2021. The two primary study outcomes were (1) implementation of medical telehealth and (2) implementation of non-medical telehealth in 2020. Medical services included HIV counseling/care, hepatitis C virus (HCV) counseling/care, and buprenorphine. Non-medical services included wellbeing/check-ins, overdose prevention training, health navigation, harm reduction and psychological counseling. Bivariate and multivariable mixed effects logistic regression models were used to directly estimate the odds ratio associated with organizational characteristics on the implementation of telehealth-based health services. RESULTS: Thirty percent of programs (n = 290) reported implementing telehealth-based health services. In multivariable logistic regression models, community-based organization SSPs had higher odds of implementing medical (aOR = 4.69, 95% CI [1.96, 11.19]) and non-medical (aOR = 2.18, 95% CI [1.10, 4.31]) health services compared to public health department SSPs. SSPs that received governmental funding had higher odds of implementing medical services via telehealth (aOR = 2.45, 95% CI [1.35, 4.47]) compared to programs without governmental funding. CONCLUSION: Community-based organization SSPs and those with government funding had the highest odds of telehealth implementation in response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Federal, state, and local governments must increase funding for low-barrier venues like SSPs to support telehealth implementation to serve the needs of people who use drugs.
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spelling pubmed-104751932023-09-04 Availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Bartholomew, Tyler S. Tookes, Hansel E. Chueng, Teresa A. Bluthenthal, Ricky N. Wenger, Lynn D. Kral, Alex H. Lambdin, Barrot H. Harm Reduct J Research INTRODUCTION: The expanded capacity of syringe services programs (SSPs) in the USA to integrate telehealth services was largely related to flexibility of buprenorphine prescription in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. SSPs demonstrated the potential of using telehealth to reach participants with both medical and non-medical services. The present study examines the implementation of medical and non-medical telehealth-based health services in 2020 at SSPs in the USA and organizational characteristics associated with adopting specific telehealth services. METHODS: We administered a cross-sectional survey among all known SSPs operating in the USA as of 2021. The two primary study outcomes were (1) implementation of medical telehealth and (2) implementation of non-medical telehealth in 2020. Medical services included HIV counseling/care, hepatitis C virus (HCV) counseling/care, and buprenorphine. Non-medical services included wellbeing/check-ins, overdose prevention training, health navigation, harm reduction and psychological counseling. Bivariate and multivariable mixed effects logistic regression models were used to directly estimate the odds ratio associated with organizational characteristics on the implementation of telehealth-based health services. RESULTS: Thirty percent of programs (n = 290) reported implementing telehealth-based health services. In multivariable logistic regression models, community-based organization SSPs had higher odds of implementing medical (aOR = 4.69, 95% CI [1.96, 11.19]) and non-medical (aOR = 2.18, 95% CI [1.10, 4.31]) health services compared to public health department SSPs. SSPs that received governmental funding had higher odds of implementing medical services via telehealth (aOR = 2.45, 95% CI [1.35, 4.47]) compared to programs without governmental funding. CONCLUSION: Community-based organization SSPs and those with government funding had the highest odds of telehealth implementation in response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Federal, state, and local governments must increase funding for low-barrier venues like SSPs to support telehealth implementation to serve the needs of people who use drugs. BioMed Central 2023-09-02 /pmc/articles/PMC10475193/ /pubmed/37660029 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-023-00861-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Bartholomew, Tyler S.
Tookes, Hansel E.
Chueng, Teresa A.
Bluthenthal, Ricky N.
Wenger, Lynn D.
Kral, Alex H.
Lambdin, Barrot H.
Availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
title Availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
title_full Availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
title_fullStr Availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
title_full_unstemmed Availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
title_short Availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
title_sort availability of telehealth-based services at syringe services programs under the covid-19 public health emergency
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10475193/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37660029
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-023-00861-3
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