{"title":"\"Can you see my screen?\" Addressing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Telehealth.","authors":"Norrisa Haynes, Agnes Ezekwesili, Kathryn Nunes, Edvard Gumbs, Monique Haynes, JaBaris Swain","doi":"10.1007/s12170-021-00685-5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose of review: </strong>Telehealth is an innovative approach with great potential to bridge the healthcare delivery gap, especially for underserved communities. While minority populations represent a target audience that could benefit significantly from this modern solution, little of the existing literature speaks to its acceptability, accessibility, and overall effectiveness in underserved populations. Here, we review the various challenges and achievements of contemporary telehealth and explore its impact on care delivery as an alternative or adjunct to traditional healthcare delivery systems.</p><p><strong>Recent findings: </strong>Given the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid acceleration in telemedicine adoption. Recent studies of telemedicine utilization during the pandemic reveal stark disparities in telemedicine modality use based on race, socioeconomic status, geography, and age.</p><p><strong>Summary: </strong>While telehealth has great potential to overcome healthcare obstacles, the <i>digital divide</i> stands as a challenge to equitable telehealth and telemedicine adoption. Achieving health equity in telehealth will require the mobilization of resources, financial incentives, and political will among hospital systems, insurance companies, and government officials.</p>","PeriodicalId":46144,"journal":{"name":"Current Cardiovascular Risk Reports","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8647517/pdf/","citationCount":"29","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current Cardiovascular Risk Reports","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12170-021-00685-5","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2021/12/6 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"CARDIAC & CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEMS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 29
Abstract
Purpose of review: Telehealth is an innovative approach with great potential to bridge the healthcare delivery gap, especially for underserved communities. While minority populations represent a target audience that could benefit significantly from this modern solution, little of the existing literature speaks to its acceptability, accessibility, and overall effectiveness in underserved populations. Here, we review the various challenges and achievements of contemporary telehealth and explore its impact on care delivery as an alternative or adjunct to traditional healthcare delivery systems.
Recent findings: Given the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid acceleration in telemedicine adoption. Recent studies of telemedicine utilization during the pandemic reveal stark disparities in telemedicine modality use based on race, socioeconomic status, geography, and age.
Summary: While telehealth has great potential to overcome healthcare obstacles, the digital divide stands as a challenge to equitable telehealth and telemedicine adoption. Achieving health equity in telehealth will require the mobilization of resources, financial incentives, and political will among hospital systems, insurance companies, and government officials.
期刊介绍:
The aim of this journal is to keep readers informed by providing cutting-edge reviews on key topics pertaining to cardiovascular risk. We use a systematic approach: international experts prepare timely articles on relevant topics that highlight the most important recent original publications. We accomplish this aim by appointing Section Editors in major subject areas across the discipline of cardiovascular medicine to select topics for review articles by leading experts who emphasize recent developments and highlight important papers published in the past year. An Editorial Board of internationally diverse members suggests topics of special interest to their country/region and ensures that topics are current and include emerging research. We also provide commentaries from well-known figures in the field.