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Telehealth experienced a boom during the Covid-19 pandemic. But health care workers are still figuring out how to best incorporate telehealth in routine care in a post-pandemic landscape.
To help chart a path forward, researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have been awarded a $4.4 million grant from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Authorized by Congress in 2010, PCORI is an independent nonprofit that funds research with a goal to help people make more informed health care decisions.
The researchers will assess the benefits of primary care physicians expanding telehealth to children with chronic conditions and their caregivers.
“In-person appointments can be incredibly challenging for families with medically fragile children,” said Dr. Savithri Nageswaran, pediatrics professor at the WFU School of Medicine and a co-principal investigator of the study.
“Caregivers must often miss work to attend the many in-person appointments these children need, which can cause financial strain. There’s also an enormous amount of planning ahead of time, given the medical complexity of the child with feeding and medicines.”
Researchers will conduct a multicenter randomized control trial to test the benefits of a telehealth intervention called enhanced primary care at 36 primary care pediatric offices across North Carolina. The intent is to enroll 400 children who will randomly be selected for early (the first six months) or delayed (later six months) implementation of enhanced primary care.
“Our primary objective is to improve the delivery of care to these children,” said Sabina Gesell, social sciences professor at WFUSOM and a co-principal investigator of the study. “We would really like to understand health disparities in this population, and we expect to recruit at least 180 children from minority groups.”
By measuring hospitalizations, emergency room visits and caregiver stress, the effectiveness of E-PRIME will be measured while following participants over the course of a year.
“This study was selected for PCORI funding for its potential to answer the need for real-world evidence about how to best incorporate telehealth into the primary care of people with multiple chronic conditions and how this may differ among populations at risk for health disparities,” said Dr. Nakela Cook, executive director of PCORI.