Provider-to-provider telehealth use for obstetric services by rural practitioners: A scoping review

This review aims to assess interventions connecting providers of perinatal care in rural areas to other providers or training. The main questions we assessed were: (1) what programs are in the academic or gray literature that connect rural providers with other providers regarding perinatal care using telehealth, (2) what are the purposes/goals of these interventions and to what extent are they intended to support provider retention or address gaps in care due to shortages of obstetrics providers in rural areas, and (3) what program evaluation has been done to examine the effectiveness of these interventions?

We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Gender Watch, and Sociological Abstracts from January 2002 to November 2024 and included relevant articles. The search produced a total of 12,790 citations, and 62 additional articles were identified through gray literature and citation searching. After screening, 56 articles met the inclusion criteria.

The 56 included articles described 21 interventions in the USA, Canada, and Australia. Programs rarely identified increasing access to care for rural communities as a goal, with many programs stating their scope was much narrower. The full scope of perinatal care is covered, and providers involved were mostly family medicine physicians and obstetricians. Programs used a variety of technologies, but synchronous connections were most common.

Programs show promise, but little is known about the effectiveness of most programs. Gray literature was crucial for finding many programs, which highlights the potential for a lack of awareness of some of these resources.