Evaluating Community-Facing Virtual Modalities to Support Complex Neurological Populations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic and concomitant governmental responses have created the need for innovative and collaborative approaches to deliver services, especially for populations that have been inequitably affected. In Alberta, Canada, two novel approaches were created in Spring 2020 to remotely support patients with complex neurological conditions and rehabilitation needs. The first approach is a telehealth service that provides wayfinding and self-management advice to Albertans with physical concerns related to existing neurological or musculoskeletal conditions or post-COVID-19 recovery needs. The second approach is a webinar series aimed at supporting self-management and social connectedness of individuals living with spinal cord injury. Objective The study aims to evaluate the short- and long-term impacts and sustainability of two virtual modalities (telehealth initiative called Rehabilitation Advice Line [RAL] and webinar series called Alberta Spinal Cord Injury Community Interactive Learning Seminars [AB-SCILS]) aimed at advancing self-management, connectedness, and rehabilitation needs during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Methods We will use a mixed-methods evaluation approach. Evaluation of the approaches will include one-on-one semistructured interviews and surveys. The evaluation of the telehealth initiative will include secondary data analyses and analysis of call data using artificial intelligence. The evaluation of the webinar series will include analysis of poll questions collected during the webinars and YouTube analytics data. Results The proposed study describes unique pandemic virtual modalities and our approaches to evaluating them to ensure effectiveness and sustainability. Implementing and evaluating these virtual modalities synchronously allows for the building of knowledge on the complementarity of these methods. At the time of submission, we have completed qualitative and quantitative data collection for the telehealth evaluation. For the webinar series, so far, we have distributed the evaluation survey following three webinars and have conducted five attendee interviews. Conclusions Understanding the impact and sustainability of the proposed telehealth modalities is important. The results of the evaluation will provide data that can be actioned and serve to improve other telehealth modalities in the future, since health systems need this information to make decisions on resource allocation, especially in an uncertain pandemic climate. Evaluating the RAL and AB-SCILS to ensure their effectiveness demonstrates that Alberta Health Services and the health system care about ensuring the best practice even after a shift to primarily virtual care. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/28267

Evaluating the impact of a novel telerehabilitation service to address neurological, musculoskeletal, or coronavirus disease 2019 rehabilitation concerns during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

“…We used multiple methods, which are described in detail in a published study protocol. 23 Methods included surveys and secondary data analyses on health service utilization. The University of Alberta Research Ethics Board approved this study (Pro00102178).…”

Evaluating Efficiency of a Provincial Telerehabilitation Service in Improving Access to Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…We used a multiple methods design. We briefly describe our methods (detailed methods published elsewhere ( Brehon et al, 2021 )). We used qualitative interviews to address Aim 1 supplemented with secondary data analyses of call metrics and narrative analyses of clinical notes using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) to address Aim 2.…”

Outcomes of Implementing a Webinar-Based Strategy to Improve Spinal Cord Injury Knowledge and Community Building: Convergent Mixed Methods Study

“…This was a mixed methods study, and the methods are described in detail in a published study protocol [ 10 ]. Methods included pop-up questions administered during live webinars, surveys, semistructured interviews, and analysis of YouTube analytics.…”