Achieving Birth Equality: Expanding Access to Prenatal Care through Telehealth

Abstract

Purpose: This purpose of this quality improvement is to assess obstetrical provider receptiveness towards and increase readiness to utilize telehealth as a healthcare option, with the overarching goal of expanding access to maternal care services and promoting birth equity. The project aim is to provide education on prenatal telehealth services, underscoring the prenatal care disparities within the southern Arizona region, identifying perceived barriers to telehealth use, and highlighting its potential to facilitate equitable care. Background: Maternal mortality continues to increase in the United States, disproportionately impacting people of color and low socioeconomic populations. Insufficient prenatal care negatively impacts the health and wellbeing of families, but many women experience barriers to care access. Telehealth is an evidence-based practice that can address disparities in access and birth equity. Methods: This project was a pretest-posttest design, including a comparative pretest before an asynchronous education session and a posttest to follow. The intervention for this project was a prerecorded PowerPoint presentation focusing on the benefits of telehealth and identifying barriers to facilitate the utilization of these services. The pretest served as a baseline measure of the participant’s readiness and receptiveness towards telehealth, identification of perceived barriers, and assessment of current beliefs in the efficacy of telehealth in addressing access and equity. The posttest served as the comparison following the provided education. Results: The results of the surveys indicate that providers are more likely to believe in the efficacy of telehealth to increase access and equity when educated on the potential for use. Results also illuminated provider desire for further education regarding reimbursement, liability, confidentiality, and privacy concerns, and the necessity for more data on patient outcomes and care quality associated with telehealth use within the prenatal care setting. Conclusion: Telehealth is a viable option to increase care access. Perceived barriers to telehealth implementation can prevent providers from fully embracing this innovation. Overcoming these barriers and optimizing telehealth utilization can increase access to maternal care and address systemic racism and economic inequity inherent in the current healthcare system. Keywords: maternal health, prenatal care, telehealth, birth equity, healthcare access, maternal mortality