Abstract
The coronavirus pandemic quickly exposed the need for efficient and widespread implementation of telehealth services. Additionally, it further unveiled the impact of social and environmental barriers to healthcare in underserved, rural populations. This in-practice pilot study tested the utility of a geographically centralized social worker providing services between a patient and a primary care provider via telecommunication at two high volume rural outpatient family practice clinics. Outcome measures included patient and provider satisfaction. Twenty-two telehealth social work encounters occurred spanning both adult and pediatric patients. Data collected from patients, primary care providers, and social work staff revealed positive feedback. The data from our small pilot study demonstrated that social work triage delivered via a tablet was an acceptable and valued resource in busy primary care practices.
Highlights
The coronavirus pandemic has opened multiple avenues of rapid advancements in methods of healthcare delivery with telemedicine being at the forefront of this change
Using quality improvement plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles as described in the literature [13] this study initially explored issues that could arise around the location of the tablet within the clinic, how to ensure it was quickly brought to the room where a primary provider was seeing a patient and cleaned and returned for the patient, ways to notify the social worker when the patient was ready, and what to do in an emergency situation
During the initial trial at the first site, primary care providers initiated the process of virtual social work visits with tablet during the medical encounter for 18 patients
Summary
The coronavirus pandemic has opened multiple avenues of rapid advancements in methods of healthcare delivery with telemedicine being at the forefront of this change. Many clinical settings required rapid adjustments to their abilities to deliver services to patients safely This pandemic acted as a catalyst to further unveil the impact of social and environmental barriers to healthcare on underserved populations [1]. These barriers, termed social determinants of health (SDOH), hold a strong influence on the health outcomes seen by many populations [2]. These factors have been defined in various ways, but often include both environmental factors (e.g., transportation), and patient factors (depression).
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