Implementing school based telehealth for children with medical complexity.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare delivery
• Pediatric healthcare
• Telehealth services

Background:

• Children with medical complexity (CMC) often require specialized healthcare coordination.
• Schools serving CMC students can be key sites for integrated health services.
• Parental involvement is crucial for managing the healthcare needs of CMC.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance parental experiences with healthcare delivery and collaborative care for children with medical complexity (CMC).
• To assess the impact of implementing telehealth services at a school for CMC.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement project surveyed parents of students at an urban public charter school for CMC.
• The Measure of Processes of Care (MPOC-20) was used for pre- and post-telehealth implementation surveys.
• Telehealth utilization data from the school year 2015-2016 was analyzed across 13 schools.

Main Results:

• Parental satisfaction scores on the MPOC-20 remained high and showed no significant changes post-telehealth implementation.
• Anecdotal evidence indicated high parent satisfaction with the telehealth services.
• The school for CMC demonstrated significantly higher odds (23.8 times) of telehealth visit utilization compared to 12 other schools (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

• Parental experiences with healthcare delivery at the school for CMC were consistently high, irrespective of telehealth implementation.
• School-based telehealth services were significantly more utilized at the CMC school than at other schools.
• Further research is recommended to fully evaluate parental experiences with school-based telehealth for CMC.