Competencies for video telemedicine with older adult patients

Telemedicine has recently become a part of mainstream clinical practice. Many curricula have been developed to teach general and specialty-specific video telemedicine skills; however, a lack of defined best practices for translating comprehensive interprofessional geriatric care to the virtual setting presents a unique challenge to educators and clinicians. This manuscript introduces and describes the development of competencies for video telemedicine with older adults for all health professionals who treat them.

A modified Delphi process was used in competency development. In 2019, interprofessional clinicians and educators who had expertise in telemedicine formed a competency development workgroup. The aim was to draft competencies for interprofessional video telemedicine with older adults while not duplicating existing competencies in geriatrics, interprofessional care, or general telemedicine. Draft competencies were circulated among experts in geriatric telemedicine and geriatric education for two rounds of comments. The competencies incorporated comments from 41 clinicians representing 7 professions.

Twenty-three competencies were created spanning six domains. A temporal organization by domain was used: (1) Overarching considerations, (2) Pre-visit preparation, (3) Beginning of the visit, (4) History taking and communication during the visit, (5) Exam during the visit (organized by the 5Ms: Mind, Mobility, Medication, Multicomplexity, and Matters Most), and (6) Post-visit coordination.

These newly developed competencies fill a gap left by those developed for specific disciplines or that do not address considerations for older adults. They lay the groundwork for curriculum development and the development of virtual Age-Friendly care.