Telehealth Usability Among Rural and Low-Income Populations: A Survey of Wyoming Medicaid Members.

Abstract

Telehealth has been shown as a tool to improve health access and outcomes in rural areas. There is less literature examining the usability and utility of telehealth by rural and low-income populations. Existing literature focuses on examining telehealth usability for specific telehealth platforms and specific use cases. There is minimal literature broadly examining telehealth usability in rural and low-income populations. Using the Telehealth Usability Questionnaire in conjunction with demographic questions, we examined telehealth usability in the Wyoming Medicaid population. Additionally, we explored whether factors such as rurality, age, gender, and whether the visit was behavioral, affected usability scores. (1) We found that overall, usability scores were high in all cases. (2) Wyoming Medicaid clients with behavioral visits demonstrated statistically significant increased usability scores compared to the already positive scores in patients with nonbehavioral visits. (3) The other variables we examined did not show any statistically significant differences in usability scores. (4) These results demonstrate broad usability of telemedicine in a rural and low-income population and may be used to justify expansion of telehealth services.