Diabetes Glucose Management through Telehealth Visits in a Critical Access Hospital Clinic

Abstract

Purpose This quality improvement project's purpose is to assess provider’s current knowledge and attitudes surrounding in-person and telehealth follow-up visits for patients with diabetes in a critical access hospital clinic and evaluate whether an educational intervention will affect intent to change future practice. Background Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death and one of the most common conditions in rural communities. Rural communities face barriers such as access and availability of healthcare resources, which is why they need other options for healthcare delivery such as telehealth services. Without proper follow-up and healthcare, these patients can have poor health outcomes. To improve healthcare delivery in these communities, the option to provide telehealth visits in addition to in-person visits is essential. Methods The project design is a retrospective pretest-posttest that aimed to strengthen provider’s knowledge and attitudes of diabetes glucose control through telehealth visits with intent to utilize in their practice. After an educational presentation, there was a single administration survey given. The survey was a pretest-posttest design, where both before and after information was collected simultaneously after the educational presentation. The questions assessed were knowledge and attitudes surrounding glucose control through telehealth services. Results There was improvement in 67% of the posttest scores. These were regarding familiarity of the hybrid option, belief of importance to implement, belief of ease in implementing, and willingness to implement in their future practice. There was no change in the concepts of knowledge in rural culture, barriers, and the diabetes condition. Conclusions The educational intervention showed an increase in provider’s knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs in telehealth glucose control. Despite the small sample size and limitations, this project plants the seed for further growth in this critical access hospital clinic. Further research surrounding diabetes telehealth with generalizable data is needed for greater impact in other rural communities.