Credit score: Pixabay/CC0 Public Area
For individuals seeing a neurologist, their age, race, ethnicity and neighborhood could play a job in whether or not they achieve this in particular person or just about, through telemedicine, in line with a examine revealed in Neurology Medical Follow. These outcomes don’t show these elements enhance or lower an individual’s chance to decide on telemedicine, they solely present an affiliation.
“There is an urgent need to develop health care options that can meet the increasing demand created by a shortage of neurologists and a rising number of individuals with neurological disease,” stated examine creator Marisa Patryce McGinley, DO, of Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Telemedicine has become an integral part of health care delivery and has the potential to improve access to care. This virtual visit option saw a surge in usage during the pandemic, which appeared to have initially improved access across all groups. However, our study found that after the pandemic, disparities persisted.”
For the examine, researchers evaluated knowledge from 242,273 individuals. Telemedicine use was in contrast throughout three time frames: prepandemic, January 2019-February 2020; early pandemic, March-June 2020; and late pandemic, July 2020-July 2022, or after social distancing.
Researchers used residence addresses and a measure known as the Space Deprivation Index to find out whether or not every participant lived in an advantaged or deprived neighborhood. The index incorporates info on the socioeconomic situations of every neighborhood and its residents, rating neighborhoods based mostly on 17 indicators together with revenue, employment, training and housing high quality. Larger scores on this index point out extra neighborhood drawback.
The members accomplished 752,174 visits in the course of the examine, of which 201,045, or 27%, had been telemedicine visits and 551,129, or 73%, had been in particular person. Telemedicine use assorted by race and ethnicity, with white individuals utilizing telemedicine as an alternative of in-person visits extra typically, 28% of the time, whereas Black individuals used telemedicine 22% of the time, and Hispanic individuals 24% of the time.
Of the whole telemedicine visits, 8,879 had been pre-pandemic, 39,624 had been in the course of the early pandemic, and 152,542 within the late pandemic.
Researchers discovered that within the late pandemic time-frame, Black individuals had been 16% much less probably to make use of telemedicine than white individuals and Hispanic individuals had been 30% much less probably to make use of telemedicine than non-Hispanic individuals.
Throughout the identical time-frame, additionally they discovered that individuals who had been from a neighborhood with the next drawback had been much less probably to make use of telemedicine. These in probably the most deprived neighborhoods had been 35% much less probably to make use of telemedicine than these within the least deprived neighborhoods.
“Equal usage of telemedicine by people in rural and urban areas in this study suggests the potential of telemedicine to improve access disparities for rural patients,” McGinley stated. “However, limited access to high-speed internet, which is often tied to disparities, has also been shown to decrease the likelihood of using telemedicine. Future studies are needed to develop equitable health care options and determine the impact of telemedicine on improving access to neurological care.”
A limitation of the examine was that just one well being system was studied, so it’s unknown whether or not related disparities exist at different establishments.
Supplied by
American Academy of Neurology
Quotation:
Examine finds disparities in telemedicine use for neurological situations (2024, November 20)
retrieved 20 November 2024
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2024-11-disparities-telemedicine-neurological-conditions.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any truthful dealing for the aim of personal examine or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is supplied for info functions solely.
