The use of telehealth in chronic care patients living with stroke provides benefits across a range of functional complications and social determinants of health, researchers have found.
Telehealth has seen a rapid expansion into chronic care management during the pandemic. In a review study, investigators sought to determine whether use of the technology could help address care disparities in patients who have had a stroke, and in which ways it might widen care barriers.
“While telehealth can expand access to care and treatment in many ways, it also has potential to increase disparities in populations with lower levels of digital literacy, limited access to the internet and in whom physical and cognitive limitations pose barriers to telehealth utilization,” Anjail Sharrief, MD, MPH, of UTHealth Houston said in a statement.
Benefits for survivors
Telehealth can be helpful for patients who have challenges such as impaired gait, vision and cognition. It may also address issues with economic instability, geographic location and social support, Sharrief and colleagues concluded.
For example, telehealth removes the need for transportation altogether, decreases the required number of in-person visits, supports multidisciplinary care and allows remote monitoring of blood pressure and cardiac arrhythmias, they noted.
“The same principles apply to patients with other neurological diseases,” Sharrief added.
Barriers to telehealth care
The team also identified key barriers to telehealth use, including physical and cognitive disability from stroke, and limited internet access, digital literacy and English proficiency.
They outlined potential strategies to address these problems, including utilization of social workers or community health workers to connect patients to federal programs that offer discounts for internet access and technology purchases; provision of mobile hotspot devices to patients with limited Wi-Fi access; use of cellular devices for telemonitoring rather than services requiring Bluetooth; and use of texting, secure messaging smartphone applications, and other tools that do not require high-speed internet.
The researchers are currently testing some of these suggestions in the stroke patient population, Sharrief said.
The review was published in the journal Stroke.
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