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 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.