School of Nursing, University of Wollongong Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia.
Sydney School of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
BMJ Open. 2023 Jan 5;13(1):e065478. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-065478.
This study aimed to investigate Australian primary healthcare professionals' experiences of the rapid upscaling of telehealth during COVID-19.
A cross-sectional survey.
Two hundred and seventeen general practitioners, nurses and allied health professionals employed in primary healthcare settings across Australia were recruited via social media and professional organisations.
An online survey was disseminated between December 2020 and March 2021. The survey comprised items about individual demographics, experiences of delivering telehealth consultations, perceived quality of telehealth consultations and future perceptions of telehealth.
Telephone was the most widely used method of providing telehealth, with less than 50% of participants using a combination of telephone and video. Key barriers to telehealth use related to the inability to undertake physical examination or physical intervention. Telehealth was perceived to improve access to healthcare for some vulnerable groups and those living in rural settings, but reduced access for people from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Quality of telehealth care was considered mostly or somewhat the same as care provided face-to-face, with actual or perceived negative outcomes related to missed or delayed diagnosis. Overwhelmingly, participants wanted telehealth to continue with guaranteed ongoing funding. Some 43.7% of participants identified the need to further improve telehealth models of care.
The rapid shift to telehealth has facilitated ongoing care during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, further work is required to better understand how telehealth can be best harnessed to add value to service delivery in usual care.
本研究旨在调查澳大利亚初级保健专业人员在 COVID-19 期间快速扩大远程医疗服务的经验。
横断面调查。
通过社交媒体和专业组织招募了 217 名在澳大利亚初级保健环境中工作的全科医生、护士和联合保健专业人员。
在线调查于 2020 年 12 月至 2021 年 3 月间进行。调查包括个人人口统计学、远程医疗咨询经验、远程医疗咨询质量感知和未来远程医疗感知等方面的项目。
电话是提供远程医疗服务最广泛使用的方法，不到 50%的参与者同时使用电话和视频。远程医疗使用的主要障碍与无法进行体检或物理干预有关。远程医疗被认为改善了一些弱势群体和农村地区人群的医疗保健获取，但对非英语背景的人来说，获取机会减少了。远程医疗护理的质量被认为与面对面护理大致相同或稍差一些，实际或感知的负面结果与漏诊或延迟诊断有关。绝大多数参与者希望远程医疗继续获得有保证的持续资金。约 43.7%的参与者认为需要进一步改进远程医疗护理模式。
向远程医疗的快速转变在 COVID-19 大流行期间促进了持续护理。然而，需要进一步努力，以更好地了解如何最好地利用远程医疗来增加常规护理中的服务价值。
