Researchers from George Washington University Describe Findings in Telemedicine (Telehealth Use and Access To Care for Underserved Populations Before and During the Covid-19 Pandemic): Telemedicine

2024 MAR 21 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Telemedicine is the subject of a report. According to news reporting from Washington, District of Columbia, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “While several studies have documented the rapid growth in telehealth visits during the pandemic, none have examined its relationship with greater overall access to care among vulnerable populations. We use Association of American Medical Colleges’ Consumer Survey data to examine the relationship between access to care and telehealth use before and during the pandemic.”

Financial support for this research came from Bureau of Health Workforce (BHW) , National Center for Health Workforce Analysis (NCHWA) , Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from George Washington University, “The proportion of survey respondents who were always able to get medical care when needed was slightly lower in 2020 compared with prior years while telehealth use rose dramatically. Disparities in telehealth use for Medicaid beneficiaries and rural respondents disappeared during the pandemic, but remained for lower-income populations. Before the pandemic, telehealth use was associated with greater access, but not during the pandemic-when it appears to have become a substitute for in-person.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “After the pandemic, telehealth could once again be an opportunity to supplement access to care, if telehealth policies enacted during the pandemic are made permanent.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Telehealth Use and Access To Care for Underserved Populations Before and During the Covid-19 Pandemic. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 2023;34(1). Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved can be contacted at: Johns Hopkins Univ Press, Journals Publishing Division, 2715 North Charles St, Baltimore, MD 21218-4363, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Clese Erikson, George Washington University, Fitzhugh Mullan Inst Hlth Workforce Equ, Washington, DC 20037, United States. Additional authors for this research include Yoon Hong Park, Natalie Felida and Michael Dill.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2023.0009. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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