Given the magnitude of the chronic health issue, the growth of the elderly population, and increases in ethnic diversity, providers need to develop new ways of caring for those with chronic conditions living in health disparity communities.
It is also known that older adult patients not using telehealth self-management visit the emergency room at more than four times the rate of patients that use telehealth and are hospitalized at twice the rate.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) www.pcori.org has an ongoing study titled “Telehealth Self-Management Program in Older Adults Living with Heart Failure in Health Disparity Communities” with Renee Pekmezaris, PhD as the Principal Investigator.
Researchers decided to do a randomized study treating health disparity community dwelling patients. The study is using telehealth self-management combining weekly provider video visits with daily patient self-monitoring.
The goal is to study a patient’s use of telehealth over a three month period to identify cost effective care approaches, enhance provider patient communication, teach the patient how to self-monitor their role in self-care, educate the patient on treatment options, and determine how usable the program is to the patients.
For example, a bilingual clinician follows patients that have had chronic heart failure for three months after hospitalization. Patient and caregiver input is obtained at multiple points during the research to intervene if there is a problem with patients so problems can be resolved.
Most of PCORI’s research via funding announcements, seeks proposals for studies pertaining to broad national research priorities as well as high priority topics. For more information on PCORI’s research goals, go to www.pcori.org/content/nationa-priorities-and-research-agenda.