An academic-community interprofessional telehealth online training partnership: Impact on students and providers

Telehealth can be used to improve rural communities' access to specialized healthcare services and ameliorate rural care barriers. Use of telehealth quickly increased with the COVID-19 pandemic, and universities shifted to online instruction for the safety of students and faculty. This rapid up...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of interprofessional care 2022-09, Vol.36 (5), p.643-650
Main Authors: Browne, Teri, McKinney, Selina Hunt, Duck, Lauren, Baliko, Beverly, Blake, Elizabeth W., Bethel, Samuel R., Christopher, Rebecca
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
academic-community partnership
COVID-19
distance education
Health needs
Interdisciplinary aspects
Interprofessional education
Learning
Medical personnel
Mental health
Multidisciplinary teams
Occupational roles
online education
Online instruction
Pandemics
Rural areas
Rural communities
rural health
Rural health care
Students
Teams
Telehealth
Telemedicine
Uptake
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Telehealth can be used to improve rural communities' access to specialized healthcare services and ameliorate rural care barriers. Use of telehealth quickly increased with the COVID-19 pandemic, and universities shifted to online instruction for the safety of students and faculty. This rapid uptake of telehealth and online instruction has created an urgent need for examples of online training for health professional students in telehealth. Participants for this study included 44 students enrolled in an interprofessional online mental health telehealth course and four health care professionals from rural clinics. Qualitative data were collected and analyzed from students and providers. Four primary themes were identified: student benefits from the IPE telehealth course, patient benefits, clinic benefits, and technological challenges. Student subthemes included learning skills needed for telehealth, improving team skills, learning about professional roles and responsibilities, and understanding rural health needs. Clinic benefits included improving telehealth readiness. This study presents an early example of online interprofessional mental health telehealth training using an academic-community partnership. Our pilot findings suggest that this course experience resulted in positive benefits for students and rural clinic providers.
ISSN:1356-1820
1469-9567
DOI:10.1080/13561820.2021.1967896