Meisel Leah R, Marcin James P, Wu Zhong, Lopez Kathryn M, Avdalovic Mark, Rosenthal Jennifer L
Center for Health and Technology, University of California Davis, Sacramento, CA, USA.
Department of Pediatrics, University of California Davis, Sacramento, CA, USA.
Telemed Rep. 2024 Jul 29;5(1):219-223. doi: 10.1089/tmr.2024.0033. eCollection 2024.
Telehealth has the potential to improve access to health care by mitigating barriers related to geography, time, and finances. However, the increased adoption of ambulatory telehealth has inadvertently widened access gaps for socially disadvantaged and marginalized populations. Quality improvement approaches are a valuable strategy to address health care access inequities and disparities, involving data-driven implementation, assessment, and adaptation of tests of change over time. Because these iterative changes and interventions are data-driven, a critical element of quality improvement requires ongoing data collection and monitoring. This perspective describes the development and validation processes of a telehealth equity dashboard. This dashboard is currently available for use by our health system leaders, providers, and clinic staff. The overall objective of this dashboard is to identify and track inequities and to improve equitable ambulatory telehealth access across diverse patient groups. Lessons learned from creating this dashboard can inform other health care systems of how to develop and validate telehealth data feedback systems to promote quality improvement efforts to advance telehealth equity and accessibility.
远程医疗有潜力通过减少与地理、时间和财务相关的障碍来改善医疗服务的可及性。然而，门诊远程医疗采用率的提高无意中扩大了社会弱势群体和边缘化人群的就医差距。质量改进方法是解决医疗服务可及性不公平和差异问题的一项重要策略，包括数据驱动的实施、评估以及随着时间推移对变革测试的调整。由于这些迭代式变革和干预是由数据驱动的，质量改进的一个关键要素是持续的数据收集和监测。本观点阐述了远程医疗公平仪表板的开发和验证过程。该仪表板目前可供我们的医疗系统领导者、提供者和诊所工作人员使用。此仪表板的总体目标是识别和跟踪不公平现象，并改善不同患者群体获得公平门诊远程医疗服务的情况。从创建此仪表板中吸取的经验教训可为其他医疗系统提供参考，告知他们如何开发和验证远程医疗数据反馈系统，以推动质量改进工作，促进远程医疗的公平性和可及性。
