VHA HSR&D Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation, & Policy, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center, Sepulveda, CA, USA.
J Gen Intern Med. 2024 Feb;39(Suppl 1):21-28. doi: 10.1007/s11606-023-08488-7. Epub 2024 Jan 22.
Although the availability of virtual care technologies in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) continues to expand, ensuring engagement with these technologies among Veterans remains a challenge. VHA Health Services Research & Development convened a Virtual Care State of The Art (SOTA) conference in May 2022 to create a research agenda for improving virtual care access, engagement, and outcomes. This article reports findings from the Virtual Care SOTA engagement workgroup, which comprised fourteen VHA subject matter experts representing VHA clinical care, research, administration, and operations. Workgroup members reviewed current evidence on factors and strategies that may affect Veteran engagement with virtual care technologies and generated key questions to address evidence gaps. The workgroup agreed that although extensive literature exists on factors that affect Veteran engagement, more work is needed to identify effective strategies to increase and sustain engagement. Workgroup members identified key priorities for research on Veteran engagement with virtual care technologies through a series of breakout discussion groups and ranking exercises. The top three priorities were to (1) understand the Veteran journey from active service to VHA enrollment and beyond, and when and how virtual care technologies can best be introduced along that journey to maximize engagement and promote seamless care; (2) utilize the meaningful relationships in a Veteran's life, including family, friends, peers, and other informal or formal caregivers, to support Veteran adoption and sustained use of virtual care technologies; and (3) test promising strategies in meaningful combinations to promote Veteran adoption and/or sustained use of virtual care technologies. Research in these priority areas has the potential to help VHA refine strategies to improve virtual care user engagement, and by extension, outcomes.
尽管退伍军人健康管理局（VHA）中虚拟护理技术的可用性不断扩大，但确保退伍军人能够使用这些技术仍然是一个挑战。VHA 卫生服务研究与开发于 2022 年 5 月召开了虚拟护理最新技术（SOTA）会议，为改善虚拟护理的可及性、参与度和结果制定了研究议程。本文报告了虚拟护理 SOTA 参与工作组的调查结果，该工作组由 14 名 VHA 临床护理、研究、管理和运营方面的专家组成。工作组审查了当前有关影响退伍军人使用虚拟护理技术的参与度的因素和策略的证据，并提出了关键问题来解决证据差距。工作组认为，尽管关于影响退伍军人参与虚拟护理技术的因素有大量文献，但仍需要更多的工作来确定增加和维持参与度的有效策略。通过一系列分组讨论和排名练习，工作组确定了研究退伍军人与虚拟护理技术的参与度的关键优先事项。三个最优先事项是：（1）了解退伍军人从现役到 VHA 注册及以后的旅程，以及在何时以及如何在旅途中最好地引入虚拟护理技术，以最大限度地提高参与度并促进无缝护理；（2）利用退伍军人生活中的有意义的关系，包括家人、朋友、同伴和其他非正式或正式的照顾者，以支持退伍军人采用和持续使用虚拟护理技术；（3）以有意义的组合测试有前途的策略，以促进退伍军人采用和/或持续使用虚拟护理技术。在这些优先领域的研究有可能帮助 VHA 完善策略，以提高虚拟护理用户的参与度，并由此提高成果。
