Transforming Access to Hearing Care: Community Perspectives on School-Based Telehealth in Rural Appalachia

School-based hearing screening serves as a critical resource for children in rural areas to be screened and connected to hearing healthcare. Telemedicine interventions in schools have shown promise in connecting children to providers; however, there is limited research on systematic adaptation and deployment of telemedicine in rural schools. Obtaining community perspectives and preferences on school-based telemedicine hearing evaluation is essential to ensure such interventions are deployable in a rural context. Grounded in the ADAPT-ITT framework, this research focused on assessing community perspectives and preferences regarding school-based telemedicine hearing screening to inform adaptation of a school-based telemedicine intervention. This analysis represents the first step of the ADAPT-ITT framework (Assessment of community perspectives).

We completed 21 semi-structured interviews of 3 informant groups: parents of children in elementary school, school staff, and regional care providers from 14 rural Appalachian counties. We analyzed data from informant groups using qualitative methods across two a priori domains: (1) experience with childhood hearing loss, screening, and follow-up process, (2) components of childhood hearing screening (school-based screening, exchange of information with educators/parents/providers, integration of technology and telemedicine).

Important implications and opportunities drawn from these data include the need for an adapted hearing screening intervention that can integrate care coordination into the screening process, provide clear yet secure communication to parents, educational staff, and regional healthcare providers, and facilitate comprehensive and timely collection of screening data.

Rural school-based hearing screening programs face a pervasive lack of communication and coordination of care following screening. By gaining community perspectives on hearing screening, communication, and care coordination, this study presents a model for how to initiate intervention adaptation when it will be studied in another context.