A scoping review of Australian allied health research in ehealth

Abstract

BackgroundUptake of e-health, the use of information communication technologies (ICT) for health service delivery, in allied health appears to be lagging behind other health care areas, despite offering the potential to address problems with service access by rural and remote Australians. The aim of the study was to conduct a scoping review of studies into the application of or attitudes towards ehealth amongst allied health professionals conducted in Australia.MethodsStudies meeting inclusion criteria published from January 2004 to June 2015 were reviewed. Professions included were audiology, dietetics, exercise physiology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, podiatry, social work, and speech pathology. Terms for these professions and forms of ehealth were combined in databases of CINAHL (EBSCO), Cochrane Library, PsycINFO (1806 – Ovid), MEDLINE (Ovid) and AMED (Ovid).ResultsForty-four studies meeting inclusion criteria were summarised. They were either trials of aspects of ehealth service delivery, or clinician and/or client use of and attitudes towards ehealth. Trials of ehealth were largely from two research groups located at the Universities of Sydney and Queensland; most involved speech pathology and physiotherapy. Assessments through ehealth and intervention outcomes through ehealth were comparable with face-to-face delivery. Clinicians used ICT mostly for managing their work and for professional development, but were reticent about its use in service delivery, which contrasted with the more positive attitudes and experiences of clients.ConclusionThe potential of ehealth to address allied health needs of Australians living in rural and remote Australia appears unrealised. Clinicians may need to embrace ehealth as a means to radicalise practice, rather than replicate existing practices through a different mode of delivery.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1791-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Speech and language screening for children with medical complexity: A comparison of telepractice and in-person methods

“…Further, some speech pathologists considered direct services such as therapy and assessment to be unsuitable for the telepractice environment. These findings are consistent with other studies that have found that speech pathologists prefer to provide indirect services via telepractice (176,220).…”

“…Thus, tertiary Despite an increase in telepractice adoption over time, respondents' self-reported understanding and confidence in telepractice did not change, and very few respondents reported high levels of understanding and confidence. Low levels of confidence have been well-documented among nonusers of telepractice (179,180,220), however, previous studies have also found that SLPs' understanding and confidence usually grows once they start implementing telepractice (183). Careful consideration of reported barriers and facilitators will be required to help increase tertiary SLPs' understanding and confidence in using telepractice with CMC.…”

Telehealth delivery of remote assessment of wheelchair and seating needs for adults and children: A scoping review (Preprint)

“…However, some professional anxieties, particularly from specialist assessors, over the quality of care (including accuracy of measurement) and adequacy of training in use of technology were reported. This discrepancy between professional (specialist versus remote) and consumer acceptability with a telehealth alternative has been reported in other studies of health professionals and across diverse consumer populations [11,37] and is clearly a barrier to the uptake of tele-WS assessment that should be anticipated and addressed in any future implementation studies.…”

“…Telehealth initiatives in other areas of healthcare services need to consider broad issues such as the adequacy of infrastructure (wi-fi, availability and compatibility of technology) [14], health professional attitudes, client perspectives and the perspectives of funders on this process to anticipate and mitigate potential barriers to the implementation of telehealth use by allied health professionals [11]. A research informed analysis of ways to address these barriers is an important step in the development of new technologies, or to promote use of existing technologies in safe and effective ways.…”

“…Potential advantages of telehealth WS assessment have been enthusiastically reported [9,11]. However an indepth analysis of what telehealth WS assessment entails, for whom, and under what technological and medical conditions telehealth WS assessment is safe and effective, is lacking [12].…”