AHRQ’s www.ahrq.gov draft brief titled “Telehealth: An Evidence Map for Decision-making” identifies and describes a limited number of key characteristics from available evidence to help make policy decisions concerning telehealth and to help guide future studies.
The study identified 1,305 citations on telehealth and 44 systematic reviews. Much of the information focused on several chronic conditions and on psychotherapy as part of behavioral health. Messaging, pictures, live videos, and operating telehealth by mobile phones were used in the study.
Promising results were obtained for patients with multiple medical problems such as found in patients with mixed chronic conditions, individuals with diabetes, and others with mental health problems. Twenty three of the systematic reviews examined telehealth in either multiple chronic conditions or for specific chronic conditions.
Areas for further review includes telehealth used for consultations, acute care, online urgent care visits, and maternal and child health. Also, topics using telehealth for triage in urgent/primary care, management of serious pediatric conditions, and the integration of behavioral and physical health may be addressed by additional primary research.
In addition, there are clinical areas and roles for telehealth that do not yet have a sufficient evidence which indicates that more primary research is needed rather than more systematic reviews.
In considering future reviews and research in key areas, the research needs to include new organizational and payment models such as ACOs and possible medical home delivery models. Research should be conducted on value-based models where the use of telehealth may improve the ability to share risk, attain quality, and obtain good outcomes.
http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/ehc/products/624/2160/telehealth-draft-report-151209.pdf has information on the draft brief.