Telemedicine and adherence to national guidelines for ADHD evaluation: a case study

The pilot project evaluated a telemedicine clinic's adherence to American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) evaluation. Real-time videoconferencing linked the patients, the families, and the specialty mental health team. The ADHD Telemedicine Clinic adherence to AAP guidelines was tracked using chart data. The study included 22 patients (Mean age = 9.3 years, SD = 2.3 years) participating in 69 telemedicine visits across 13 different school-related sites. The ADHD Telemedicine Clinic reached extremely high adherence rates across the AAP evaluation guidelines for ADHD, ranging from 95-100% across the six guidelines. No factor inherent to the telemedicine service delivery mechanism impeded adherence to national guidelines for ADHD evaluation. Telemedicine-based outreach had the greatest impact on AAP Guideline #4, stating that information should be obtained from the child's academic setting. The school-based telemedicine clinic allowed increased communication across the school and specialty mental health systems and facilitated greater input across child, parent, school personnel, and mental health professionals.