Table 1 Focus group participants, level of telehealth experience and service provision area (urban or rural)
Participants | Level of telehealth experience in patient care | Health services provided to older people | Focus group details |
|---|---|---|---|
Participants providing services to urban areas | |||
Urban ambulatory rehabilitation in the home clinical team: ‘urban clinicians’ | None | Face-to-face physiotherapy (PT), Occupational Therapy (OT), Social Work (SW), Exercise Physiology (EP), Speech Pathology (SP), Rehabilitation Nursing (RN) in patients’ homes in southern urban Adelaide. | Focus group 1 13 participants Face-to-face at urban hospital |
Urban ambulatory rehabilitation in the home clinical team post implementation of telehealth into the service: ‘novice telehealth urban clinicians’ | Minimal | Face-to-face PT, OT, SW, EP, SP, RN in patients’ homes in southern urban Adelaide. Encouraged to provide some services at distance via telehealth following roll-out of the service post-trial. Clinicians exercised their own discretion regarding how much of their caseload they used telehealth to provide their service, with no set criteria for assigning a patient to telehealth delivered services. | Focus group 2 9 participants Face-to-face at urban hospital |
Participants providing services to rural areas | |||
Residential aged care team: ‘residential aged care staff’ | 6 months | Supported residents who participated in telehealth geriatric review and rehabilitation at two rural residential aged care facilities. Review, assessments and follow-ups conducted via specialist videoconferencing equipment installed at the aged care facility. | Focus group 3 6 participants Face-to-face at residential aged care facility Focus group 4 2 participants Videoconference |
Rural rehabilitation allied health clinical team: ‘rural allied health clinicians’ | None | Rehabilitation and allied health services to rural areas in South Australia. | Focus group 5 7 participants Teleconference |
Participants providing services to both urban and rural areas | |||
Telehealth trial clinical team: ‘telehealth clinicians’ | 6 months | Service provision via telehealth as part of a telehealth in the home trial: Rehabilitation: Combination of face-to-face and distant PT, OT, SP assessment, intervention and review, distant activity monitoring. To community patients in urban areas of Adelaide, and rural patients living in residential aged care. Monitoring done via provision of ‘off-the-shelf’ (i.e., iPad) technology to patients in their homes, and specialist videoconferencing technology installed in residential aged care facilities. Activity level data was electronically transmitted and assessments and follow up conducted via videoconference. Geriatric review for patients living in rural residential aged care facilities: Specialist videoconferencing technology installed at the facility through which a geriatrician located at the hospital conducted distance reviews with the support of a ‘trial nurse’ and facility staff ‘on the ground’. Palliative care to community patients: Combination of face-to-face and distant intervention, including daily self-reporting of patients’ symptoms via iPad provided to the patient in their home. | Focus group 6 5 participants Face-to-face at urban hospital Focus group 7 2 participants Face-to-face at urban hospital |