Fairweather Glenn C, Lincoln Michelle A, Ramsden Robyn
Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Lidcombe, NSW, Australia.
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.
Rural Remote Health. 2017 Jul-Sep;17(3):4225. doi: 10.22605/RRH4225. Epub 2017 Sep 17.
Difficulties in accessing allied health services, especially in rural and remote areas, appear to be driving the use of telehealth services to children in schools. The objectives of this study were to investigate the experiences and views of school executive staff and therapy assistants regarding the feasibility and acceptability of a speech-language pathology telehealth program for children attending schools in rural and remote New South Wales, Australia. The program, called Come N See, provided therapy interventions remotely via low-bandwidth videoconferencing, with email follow-up. Over a 12-week period, children were offered therapy blocks of six fortnightly sessions, each lasting a maximum of 30 minutes.
School executives (=5) and therapy assistants (=6) described factors that promoted or threatened the program's feasibility and acceptability, during semistructured interviews. Thematic content analysis with constant comparison was applied to the transcribed interviews to identify relationships in the data.
Emergent themes related to (a) unmet speech pathology needs, (b) building relationships, (c) telehealth's advantages, (d) telehealth's disadvantages, (e) anxiety replaced by joy and confidence in growing skills, and (f) supports.
School executive staff and therapy assistants verified that the delivery of the school-based telehealth service was feasible and acceptable. However, the participants saw significant opportunities to enhance this acceptability through building into the program stronger working relationships and supports for stakeholders. These findings are important for the future development of allied health telehealth programs that are sustainable as well as effective and fit the needs of all crucial stakeholders. The results have significant implications for speech pathology clinical practice relating to technology, program planning and teamwork within telehealth programs.
获得联合健康服务存在困难，尤其是在农村和偏远地区，这似乎促使学校为儿童提供远程医疗服务。本研究的目的是调查学校行政人员和治疗助理对于为澳大利亚新南威尔士州农村和偏远地区学校的儿童开展言语病理学远程医疗项目的可行性和可接受性的经验和看法。该项目名为“来看看”，通过低带宽视频会议远程提供治疗干预，并通过电子邮件跟进。在12周的时间里，为儿童提供为期六周、每两周一次的治疗单元，每次最长30分钟。
学校行政人员（n = 5）和治疗助理（n = 6）在半结构化访谈中描述了促进或威胁该项目可行性和可接受性的因素。对转录后的访谈应用持续比较的主题内容分析法，以识别数据中的关系。
出现的主题包括：（a）未满足的言语病理学需求；（b）建立关系；（c）远程医疗的优势；（d）远程医疗的劣势；（e）焦虑被技能增长带来的喜悦和信心所取代；（f）支持。
学校行政人员和治疗助理证实，提供基于学校的远程医疗服务是可行且可接受的。然而，参与者认为通过在项目中建立更强大的工作关系并为利益相关者提供支持，有很大机会提高这种可接受性。这些发现对于联合健康远程医疗项目的未来发展很重要，这些项目既要可持续，又要有效且符合所有关键利益相关者的需求。研究结果对言语病理学临床实践在远程医疗项目中的技术应用、项目规划和团队合作方面具有重要意义。
