Barriers to Telehealth

Original Editor - Arnold Fredrick D'Souza Top Contributors - Arnold Fredrick D'Souza, Kim Jackson and Angeliki Chorti

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Introduction

Telehealth practice is increasing globally, partially in response to the sudden disruption brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth usage is not without significant barriers, specific to the setting, which need to be clearly identified beforehand and may necessitate the development of individualized strategies to sufficiently address them.

Categories of barriers to telehealth practice

Most barriers can be categorized under the following:

Ethical

Due to widespread social media usage, there is generally a great awareness of data privacy and confidentiality issues associated with being online. These issues are more pressing when it concerns health records and other private information related to treatment. These fears might discourage some from accepting telehealth as an alternative mode of availing healthcare services.

Socio-cultural

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the general perception and attitude of clinicians and patients towards telehealth was usually negative to mixed. Although the acceptability might have increased after the pandemic, certain populations, especially in rural settings might still express concerns about the use of telehealth for their healthcare needs. Increasing awareness through education can help mitigate these concerns.

Technological

These are usually associated with the technological requirements for conducting telehealth. They may include lack of broadband coverage or low bandwidth, lack of user-friendly telehealth hardware or software, and poor digital literacy. Broadband coverage and speeds are set to improve in the future. Furthermore, the rollout of 5G around the world will make telehealth easier due to the exponentially higher data transfer speeds. There has already been considerable improvement seen globally in the past decade. Clinicians must collaborate with engineers and designers must develop telehealth devices and software applications keeping in mind the needs of the target population. Poor digital literacy can be overcome with good design, besides patient education.