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Telehealth in developmental-behavioral pediatrics
Neelkamal S Soares1, Diane L Langkamp
1David Geffen School of Medicine, Mattel Children's Hospital at University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA. nsoares@mednet.ucla.edu
Insights
Telehealth offers a solution to developmental-behavioral pediatrics (DBP) specialist shortages, improving access to care for children with developmental disorders. This innovative approach reduces travel and wait times for families needing DBP services.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Telemedicine
- Health Services Research
Background:
- Developmental-behavioral pediatrics (DBP) faces significant subspecialist shortages.
- Families experience barriers to care, including long travel distances and wait times.
- Increasing identification of developmental and behavioral disorders exacerbates access issues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe practical applications of telehealth for DBP diagnostic and management services.
- To explore educational and research benefits of telehealth in DBP.
- To identify obstacles and provide resources for establishing DBP telehealth practices.
Main Methods:
- Review of telehealth applications in developmental-behavioral pediatrics.
- Discussion of practical implementation strategies and challenges.
- Identification of benefits for various stakeholders.
Main Results:
- Telehealth can effectively deliver DBP diagnostic and management services across diverse settings.
- Telehealth offers educational and research opportunities within DBP.
- Addressing implementation obstacles can enhance DBP telehealth adoption.
Conclusions:
- Telehealth is a vital tool to supplement in-person DBP care, reducing access barriers.
- Implementing telehealth enhances care delivery for children with developmental and behavioral disorders.
- Telehealth benefits patients, practitioners, and healthcare systems by improving outreach and engagement.
Abstract:
Developmental-behavioral pediatrics (DBP) is recognized as one of the fields with the greatest shortages of pediatric subspecialists. Families who access care often must travel great distances to tertiary academic medical centers or endure long waiting lists. While the shortages are likely to persist due to limited provider availability and an increasing number of children with developmental and behavioral disorders being identified, our field must look to innovative ways to reduce the barriers to access. One such way is telehealth, the use of videoconferencing to deliver DBP services to underserved populations. We aim to describe the practical uses of telehealth for the delivery of diagnostic and management clinical services in a variety of settings and for the additional educational and research benefits of the modality. We will highlight the obstacles to setting up a successful DBP telehealth practice and direct readers to resources to address these in their communities. Most of all, we will demonstrate the benefit to families and children, practitioners, and health care systems of supplementing traditional in-person DBP services with telehealth modalities to enhance outreach and engagement with communities.
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