Challenges in providing telehealth to older adults
Telehealth has lots of benefits and challenges. One of the biggest challenges is providing telehealth to older adults.
Like the rest of the UK, you are more than likely to be aware that the use of telehealth and telemedicine has risen dramatically since the pandemic. Even if you are unsure what telehealth means, you have more than likely been exposed to it thanks to the rise in virtual health visits.
In 2020 80% physicians and 22% of consumers were using virtual visits and these numbers continue to rise. However, with the number of virtual visits increasing telehealth services have experienced a number of barriers and challenges.
If you are a provider of healthcare or local authority wanting to know how to transition from analogue to digital telecare and how to overcome the challenges in providing telehealth to older adults. Or you are a loved one wanting to figure out the best way to help an older adult to get the best outcomes from their virtual visit. Or you are just wanting to find out more about telehealth services, their challenges and their solutions altogether, then this article is for you.
At the Access Group we are passionate about ensuring we can provide the best information and support possible to help enable a better continuity of care for people whether it is in person or virtually across the care continuum. We work hard to offer intelligence driven insights which enable better evidence-based decision making for more joined-up working across the health and social care market.
This article will explain the main challenges in providing telehealth to older adults, how best to overcome them, the benefits older adults can experience, and how our assure service can help go one step further to help more vulnerable and less mobile patients get the most out of their virtual visits.
Challenges in providing telehealth to older adults – what are they?
Whilst telehealth has many benefits there are also many challenges, especially for older adults. Telehealth in general is seen more positively with more digitally literate individuals, but for adults that are older, more vulnerable, less mobile, or adults that suffer with cognitive issues, they can find being exposed to telehealth services more of a challenge.
Telehealth is often used by healthcare professionals to provide care and support virtually. This can be through a variety of means, but predominantly virtual visits tend to be held via online video calls, phone calls, and online messages.
Since the pandemic there have been great benefits, including reducing Covid-19 transmission levels, and in some cases it has also helped patients get seen by health professionals quicker.
Studies investigating whether older adults are ready to use telehealth services have shown that 30% of older adults argued that they were not ready due to being inexperienced with technology. In the same study a further 49% of adults reported being concerned about privacy during telemedicine visits.
The results from these studies demonstrate there are a variety of challenges, barriers, and reasons why older adults may not feel ready to use telehealth services. In order to allow older adults to feel more prepared it is crucial for telehealth providers to understand why they do not feel prepared, and how they can be helped.
Examples of the challenges in providing telehealth to older adults
For older adults there are a lot of challenges that could make using telehealth services unsuccessful some of these include:
1. Lack of internet access
For telehealth to work successfully it relies on technology to transfer information between healthcare and social care professionals and patients.
This can be challenging for older adults as they may not have access to basic fundamental technology needed. For example a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. For these to work you also need a reliable internet connection.
Therefore if a household of older adults do not have access to a computer or laptop they may not have internet access either. Sometimes this can be resolved by loved ones setting up their own laptops in their own homes for a virtual visit but this should never be relied upon.
A study by Medicare beneficiaries showed that 41% of participants did not have access to a desktop or laptop which had high-speed internet, 40% did not have a smartphone with wireless internet and a quarter did not have either.
By not having either of these technologies or high-speed reliable internet, older adults are limited to phone calls which can be successful when requesting repeat prescriptions, but can be more challenging for more complex care needs, especially if an individual has hearing impairments too.
2. Lack of experience with technology
Even when older adults do have both internet access and access to technologies, there can still be further challenges that can arise.
For example, if the Wi-Fi goes down or there is an issue with the laptop or computer itself, a lack of experience with the technology may result in older adults finding it difficult to troubleshoot and resolve these potential issues independently.
Even if a problem arises during a video call with a health professional, a lack of understanding and experience with technology and lower digital literacy levels can mean that even if a health professional attempts to help them overcome a technical issue, this may not be successful, and could lead to further confusion or frustration.
An AMA survey conducted by physicians demonstrated that when patients lack digital literacy this can be a major telehealth barrier. Examples of digital literacy include accessing emails, searching into google, and answering zoom calls. Without having the knowledge and experience doing all of these, older adults using telehealth services can be very limited and sometimes counter-productive.
3. Cognitive, hearing, or vision issues
With the UK becoming widely know as an ageing population another challenge in providing telehealth services is accommodating to gradual deterioration in hearing and vision, as well as cognitive abilities.
Both hearing and vision deteriorating as an adult gets older is a normal process of aging, but when it comes to combining both vision and hearing impairments with telehealth services communication can be difficult.
Approximately, 8 million adults over 60 suffer from hearing loss. This can make the delivery of telehealth services even harder as interactions may not always take place in a quiet environment. Background noise and distractions may be higher, limiting both the patient’s and the health professional’s comprehension.
Another major barrier in delivering telehealth services successfully, is due to cognitive issues. Cognitive impairments are becoming a more common and a reality for many. Cognitive issues in older adults can make in-person interactions with health and social care professionals increasingly difficult and some studies have said it would be almost impossible to deliver telehealth services in this situation.
4. Socioeconomic factors
One of the final barriers in delivering telehealth services to older adults are socioeconomic factors. The socioeconomic status of every individual is often different, regardless if you are younger or you are older.
The older adult’s socioeconomic status may affect their ability to participate in all telehealth services and instead they may prefer to do telephone-only appointments, which as already discussed works well for simpler appointments, but they can be more of a hinderance for more complex ones.
The variety of socioeconomic statuses in older adults can also contribute to additional barriers including hearing impairments as they may not be able to afford the assistive technology needed to make communication within telehealth services easier.
How to overcome the barriers in providing telehealth services to older adults?
Like already discussed there are a variety of barriers that can be challenging when delivering telehealth services to older adults, and often sometimes there can be multiple which then makes delivering successful telehealth even harder.
In order to overcome these barriers there are a variety of solutions local authorities, health and social professionals, and telehealth providers can use:
- Collect information about what types of telehealth services older adults already have readily available and what they could also get access to
- Ensure information about what telehealth is and what services can be offered are shown to older adults
- Reassure older adults that just because they may have appointments digitally it does not mean the level of care they will receive is any less, and that sometimes they could be seen quicker
- Ensure they are clearly written step-by-step instructions for how to use a particular telehealth service and make sure these instructions are adaptable for both vision and hearing impairments. For example have instructions written in large print or braille, or offer an audio recording for instructions and ensure there is way they can listen to them.
- Encourage the use of video calls to maximise the benefits of telehealth encounters
- Understand the difficulties older adults may encounter, and be prepared to help in any way possible
- Always speak clearly and concisely so patients and loved ones understand what is being said
- Always clarify what a patient has said
- Consider using an interpreter if short-term solutions don’t help improve a patient’s hearing, vision, or cognitive understanding
- Always provide a written summary after a telehealth appointment so both parties have records they can refer to
- Always ask for feedback to find new ways to improve telehealth services
- Invest in digital telecare and technology enabled care to make anlaysing symptoms easier
The barriers of providing telehealth to older adults – How can Access TEC help?
One great way to overcome the challenges in providing telehealth to older adults is through investing in digital telecare and technology enabled care.
Investing in digital telecare can help equip users with proactive and preventative solutions to improve the day-to-day living of older adults and improve their quality of life. At The Access TEC we go one step further than this by uniquely combining traditional reactive alarm functionality with proactive digital monitoring of day-to-day activities.
Here our telecare ecosystem helps streamline telehealth appointments by providing intelligence driven insights which enable evidence-based decision making that transforms care outcomes across the care continuum.
Our home hubs can record day-to-day activities and acknowledge patterns of individuals in as little as 14 days. Here any abnormal changes of behaviour can be alerted to the needed support giver so they are alerted before anything critical happens. Here our home hubs can record data and information which health professionals need to make better informed decisions and help deliver more person-centred care.
All data can be recorded for health, social care, and loved ones to access via our mobile app to prevent any confusion from patients, and reduce the risk of any confusion from memory difficulties being made. Here through combining data we help to make life more simple and easier for our end-users by providing a single platform which collects, processes, stores and analyses data, to prioritise care and help deliver better joined-up care across the health and social care market.
Our latest integration with our care planning software enables care workers to have enhanced visibility of smart alerts and alarms from the home hub in our care planning mobile app to be updated on activity between visits to know what has happened before the next one. This, in turn helps provide better proactive care, led by valuable insights, to ensure care services are safe, effective, and high quality by having a full end-to-end visibility to mitigate risks and identify issues in real-time before something more critical happens.
This way during a virtual visit both the patient and the health professionals have all the information they need to give patients the freedom to do more, remain more independent, and reassure individuals by helping care planning and reviewing to be more efficient and best meet their care needs. Through integrating data onto a single platform clinicians have access to everything they need when they need it and it can help minimise hospital admission.
One of our customers who is a telehealth manager has said that:
“It is so refreshing to see technology suppliers aligning to business need and providing products and options that enable the journey towards a seamless service for patients and residents.”
Another one of our customers, Airtel Vodafone, worked with the Government of Jersey to digitally transform their new care model. We made it one of our main priorities to ensure a digital migration could take place with minimum disruption. Here the transition to digital telecare was warmly welcomed by users, with 95% choosing to switch to the new service straight away.
This can help streamline telehealth services whilst making sure that older adults feel more confident in using the services by being reassured that the will still be delivered the best continuity of care.
What are the benefits of telehealth for older adults when challenges are overcome?
Once barriers in delivering telehealth to older adults are overcome and the needs for your loved one or local authority has been addressed, there are many benefits older people can experience including:
- Being more confident and exposed in how to use different technology
- Increased independence in answering online video calls
- Improved digital literacy
- Fewer trips needed to go outside the home which could be safer if an individual is more vulnerable, prone to falls, or if there are both mobility or transportation difficulties
- Better chances of being seen sooner
- Reduced hospital admission through using digital telecare which can send alerts before something more critical happens
- More cost effective
- Families are more reassured there is a better continuity of care
Summarising the challenges and solutions of providing telehealth for older people
This article has reviewed the main challenges and barriers that can occur when providing telehealth to older adults and explained how there can be more than one barrier which makes delivering telehealth services successfully more difficult.
We have explained some key strategies in how to overcome these barriers so older adults have the best continuity of care whether they receive care in person or virtually, as well as highlighting the other types of telehealth and how digital telecare and technology enabled care can help streamline virtual visits more efficiently.
Here we explained how using technology enabled care outside of appointments can help older people with long-term conditions track and monitor their conditions more efficiently.
Through explaining the benefits of digital telecare, we have explained how we go one step further at The Access Group, and how our digital telecare including community alarms, home hubs, pendants, and mobile apps can help reduce the risk of symptoms and changes of behaviour in a patient not being passed onto healthcare professionals due to cognitive impairments, to help make better informed decisions.
For more information in how our technology enabled care and digital telecare can help older adults be more prepared to use telehealth services discover how our proactive prevention based on intelligent insights can help deliver the best continuity of care.
Why not learn more about what technology enabled care is available in your local area today, and get your provider to contact us so we can provide you with our Assure service to give you, and your local community the freedom to do more.
