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Age and Medicare Insurance are Barriers to Telemedicine Access-A Quality Improvement Project
Vashisht Madabhushi1, Christopher J McLouth2, Robert King1
1Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.
Background:
Telehealth use has had widespread expansion and adoption over the past two years. This study aims to evaluate access to telehealth essentials (TE) using a novel metric.
Methods:
This single institute study surveyed outpatient surgical patients to determine their access to TE. Generalized linear mixed models were used to determine the relationship of demographic and county-level variables on access to four TE.
Results:
138 patients were surveyed. Sixty-six (47.8%) were from Appalachian Kentucky. In the survey cohort, 122 (88.4%) had smart phones, 109 (80.7%) had devices with video messaging capabilities, 106 (80.9%) had cellular reception, and 112 (82.4%) had access to WiFi. Increasing age and Medicare insurance were the most consistent predictors of lack of access to TE.
Conclusion:
Rural Appalachian Kentucky has access to TE. Telehealth has the potential to decrease the healthcare inequity in rural populations, but incompletely address this inequity for the aging population.
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