ABSTRACT

As older adult populations rise in the United States, community-based telehealth programs are gaining momentum because of their ability to provide telehealth services for community-dwelling older adults at a lower cost compared to home-based telehealth services. The success of such community-based telehealth programs heavily depends on end-user engagement and acceptance; however, few studies to date have explored these issues. We conducted an interview study with 14 active and 3 inactive participants of a community-based Telehealth Intervention Program for Seniors (TIPS) to examine older individuals’ perceived benefits and barriers to participating in community-based telehealth programs as well as strategies to improve those programs. We found that older adults had a positive experience toward the use of telehealth services in a community setting, including benefits like monitoring health status and enabling socialization. There were no perceived barriers about the telehealth program. Aspects that can be improved include facilitating the management and sharing of historical physiological data, providing additional assessments of cognitive and/or mental status, supporting self-education, and enabling more comprehensive health status tracking. We conclude this paper by discussing the implications of our results to the improvement of community-based telehealth programs for low-income, vulnerable aging populations.

摘要

随着美国老年人口的增加，基于社区的远程医疗计划正在获得动力，因为与基于家庭的远程医疗服务相比，它们能够以更低的成本为社区居住的老年人提供远程医疗服务。这种基于社区的远程医疗计划的成功在很大程度上取决于最终用户的参与和接受程度；然而，迄今为止很少有研究探讨这些问题。我们对基于社区的老年人远程医疗干预计划 (TIPS) 的 14 名活跃参与者和 3 名不活跃参与者进行了访谈研究，以检查老年人对参与基于社区的远程医疗计划的感知利益和障碍以及改进这些计划的策略. 我们发现老年人对在社区环境中使用远程医疗服务有积极的体验，包括监测健康状况和促进社会化等好处。远程医疗计划没有明显的障碍。可以改进的方面包括促进历史生理数据的管理和共享，提供额外的认知和/或精神状态评估，支持自我教育，以及实现更全面的健康状况跟踪。我们通过讨论我们的结果对改进针对低收入、脆弱的老龄人口的基于社区的远程医疗计划的影响来结束本文。提供额外的认知和/或精神状态评估，支持自我教育，并实现更全面的健康状况跟踪。我们通过讨论我们的结果对改进针对低收入、脆弱的老龄人口的基于社区的远程医疗计划的影响来结束本文。提供额外的认知和/或精神状态评估，支持自我教育，并实现更全面的健康状况跟踪。我们通过讨论我们的结果对改进针对低收入、脆弱的老龄人口的基于社区的远程医疗计划的影响来结束本文。