Healthcare Professionals and Telehealth Usability during COVID-19

Objective: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many other health providers needed to rapidly adopt telehealth services to ensure continuity of patient care, without the opportunity to extensively evaluate the usability of the adopted technology. Therefore, this study aims to examine health professionals’ telehealth usability during COVID-19 in Florida. Design: This cross-sectional study employed the Telehealth Usability Questionnaire (TUQ) to licensed healthcare providers in Florida in June 2020. Setting and Participants: A total of 399,660 selected health professionals with Florida licensure were recruited from open-access Florida healthcare to participate in a Qualtrics web-based survey. A total of 1,868 health professionals completed the survey. Multiple linear and mixed regression models were applied to analyze the overall and subdomain scores from TUQ. Main Outcome Measures: Telehealth usability. Results: The analysis of the overall TUQ score showed younger, female healthcare professionals, and participants who reported an increase in telehealth usage during pandemic had a significantly higher overall TUQ score. Compared with the score from physicians and nurses, the scores from the mental health group and social work group were significantly higher, while the score rehabilitation group was significantly lower. Analysis of the subdomain scores was consistent with the overall scores. Conclusion: The findings from this study indicate that the health professionals’ telehealth usability is related to age, gender, and the change of telehealth usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. While pandemics represent only one possible impetus for the healthcare system to swiftly switch to telehealth platforms, each profession should consider providing adequate resources to accommodate the need for change.

Grandparents' Mental Health and Lived Experiences while Raising Their Grandchildren at the Forefront of COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia.

Understanding grandparents' lived experiences and healthy aging is essential to designing efficient, effective, and safe services to support a family structure in which grandparents care for their grandchildren. However, no study to date has explored this concept in an Arab and Muslim country during a pandemic. The purpose of this study was to examine grandparents' experiences raising their grandchildren to provide recommendations for needed mental health interventions during and after COVID-19. We used a phenomenological approach to gain a detailed and in-depth understanding of the lived experiences of 15 grandparents caring for their grandchildren. This study shows the need for support service interventions (support groups, health professional support, and respite care) for grandparents in Saudi Arabia, especially during global crises like COVID-19, that enhance social distance and social isolation. Raising grandchildren affects the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of the grandparents.

Covid-19 Impacts on Florida's Healthcare Professionals.

This study described how COVID-19 impacted employment, telehealth usage, and interprofessional collaboration. A cross-sectional survey was deployed in June 2020 to healthcare professionals in Florida. Job status was uniquely separated by profession, with more nurses and medical doctors reported having no effect, and more mental health counselors transitioned to telehealth. Over a third of rehabilitation providers reported being furloughed. Over forty percent of providers had no training in telehealth, yet 33.1% reported an increase in usage. Interprofessional interactions are lower across professions during the pandemic, compared with before. This study shows the need for additional training on telehealth and interprofessional collaboration.