Turning Digital Trails into a Telehealth Competitive Edge.

Digital trails, data collections of individuals' traceable digital activities online or on digital devices, have been utilized by many industries to provide valuable insights to enhance customer experience, improve operation efficiency, and increase revenues. Despite the abundance of digital trails among health care data, health care has lagged behind other industries in extracting their values. Recently, telehealth's accelerated adoption due to the COVID-19 pandemic provides an unprecedented opportunity for health care providers to take advantage of digital trails. In this study, we describe digital trails generated from the telehealth workflow and discuss a few use cases to demonstrate how telehealth digital trails can be used to improve clinical service quality, streamline patient care workflow, and enhance the patient experience.

Assessment of 135 794 Pediatric Patients Tested for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Across the United States.

Importance: There is limited information on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing and infection among pediatric patients across the United States. Objective: To describe testing for SARS-CoV-2 and the epidemiology of infected patients. Design, Setting, and Participants: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using electronic health record data from 135 794 patients younger than 25 years who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 from January 1 through September 8, 2020. Data were from PEDSnet, a network of 7 US pediatric health systems, comprising 6.5 million patients primarily from 11 states. Data analysis was performed from September 8 to 24, 2020. Exposure: Testing for SARS-CoV-2. Main Outcomes and Measures: SARS-CoV-2 infection and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) illness. Results: A total of 135 794 pediatric patients (53% male; mean [SD] age, 8.8 [6.7] years; 3% Asian patients, 15% Black patients, 11% Hispanic patients, and 59% White patients; 290 per 10 000 population [range, 155-395 per 10 000 population across health systems]) were tested for SARS-CoV-2, and 5374 (4%) were infected with the virus (12 per 10 000 population [range, 7-16 per 10 000 population]). Compared with White patients, those of Black, Hispanic, and Asian race/ethnicity had lower rates of testing (Black: odds ratio [OR], 0.70 [95% CI, 0.68-0.72]; Hispanic: OR, 0.65 [95% CI, 0.63-0.67]; Asian: OR, 0.60 [95% CI, 0.57-0.63]); however, they were significantly more likely to have positive test results (Black: OR, 2.66 [95% CI, 2.43-2.90]; Hispanic: OR, 3.75 [95% CI, 3.39-4.15]; Asian: OR, 2.04 [95% CI, 1.69-2.48]). Older age (5-11 years: OR, 1.25 [95% CI, 1.13-1.38]; 12-17 years: OR, 1.92 [95% CI, 1.73-2.12]; 18-24 years: OR, 3.51 [95% CI, 3.11-3.97]), public payer (OR, 1.43 [95% CI, 1.31-1.57]), outpatient testing (OR, 2.13 [1.86-2.44]), and emergency department testing (OR, 3.16 [95% CI, 2.72-3.67]) were also associated with increased risk of infection. In univariate analyses, nonmalignant chronic disease was associated with lower likelihood of testing, and preexisting respiratory conditions were associated with lower risk of positive test results (standardized ratio [SR], 0.78 [95% CI, 0.73-0.84]). However, several other diagnosis groups were associated with a higher risk of positive test results: malignant disorders (SR, 1.54 [95% CI, 1.19-1.93]), cardiac disorders (SR, 1.18 [95% CI, 1.05-1.32]), endocrinologic disorders (SR, 1.52 [95% CI, 1.31-1.75]), gastrointestinal disorders (SR, 2.00 [95% CI, 1.04-1.38]), genetic disorders (SR, 1.19 [95% CI, 1.00-1.40]), hematologic disorders (SR, 1.26 [95% CI, 1.06-1.47]), musculoskeletal disorders (SR, 1.18 [95% CI, 1.07-1.30]), mental health disorders (SR, 1.20 [95% CI, 1.10-1.30]), and metabolic disorders (SR, 1.42 [95% CI, 1.24-1.61]). Among the 5374 patients with positive test results, 359 (7%) were hospitalized for respiratory, hypotensive, or COVID-19-specific illness. Of these, 99 (28%) required intensive care unit services, and 33 (9%) required mechanical ventilation. The case fatality rate was 0.2% (8 of 5374). The number of patients with a diagnosis of Kawasaki disease in early 2020 was 40% lower (259 vs 433 and 430) than in 2018 or 2019. Conclusions and Relevance: In this large cohort study of US pediatric patients, SARS-CoV-2 infection rates were low, and clinical manifestations were typically mild. Black, Hispanic, and Asian race/ethnicity; adolescence and young adulthood; and nonrespiratory chronic medical conditions were associated with identified infection. Kawasaki disease diagnosis is not an effective proxy for multisystem inflammatory syndrome of childhood.

Documented Reasons of Cancellation and Rescheduling of Telehealth Appointments During the Pandemic.

Background and Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic increased the use of telehealth around the world. The aim is to minimize health care service disruption as well as reducing COVID-19 exposure. However, one of the major operational concerns is cancellations and rescheduling (C/Rs). C/Rs may create additional burden and cost to the patient, provider, and the health system. Our aim is to understand the reasons for C/Rs of the telehealth session after the scheduled start time. Materials and Methods: We reviewed electronic health records (EHRs) to identify the C/R reasons for behavioral health and speech language pathology departments. Documented C/Rs in the medical charts were identified from EHR by using a keyword-based and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-supported EHR search engine. From the search results, we randomly selected 200 notes and conducted a thematic analysis. Results: We identified four themes explaining C/R reasons. Most frequent theme was "technicality" (47, 36%), followed by "engagement" (34, 25%), "scheduling" (31, 24%), and "unspecified" (20, 15%). The findings showed that technical reasons are the leading cause of C/Rs, constituting 36% of the cases (95% confidence interval [CI]: 29-43%). Notably, "engagement" constituted a sizeable 25% (95% CI: 19-31%) of C/Rs, as a result of the inability to engage a patient to complete the telehealth session. Conclusions: The study shows that engagement is one of the new challenges to the pediatric telehealth visits. Future studies of new engagement models are needed for the success of telehealth. Our findings will help fill the literature gaps and may help with enhancing the digital experience for both caregivers and providers, reducing wasted time and resources due to preventable C/Rs, improving clinical operation efficiency, and treatment adherence.

Readiness for voice assistants to support healthcare delivery during a health crisis and pandemic.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to continue responding to healthcare needs, hospitals are rapidly adopting telehealth and other digital health tools to deliver care remotely. Intelligent conversational agents and virtual assistants, such as chatbots and voice assistants, have been utilized to augment health service capacity to screen symptoms, deliver healthcare information, and reduce exposure. In this commentary, we examined the state of voice assistants (e.g., Google Assistant, Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa) as an emerging tool for remote healthcare delivery service and discussed the readiness of the health system and technology providers to adapt voice assistants as an alternative healthcare delivery modality during a health crisis and pandemic.

Pediatric Telebehavioral Health: A Transformational Shift in Care Delivery in the Era of COVID-19.

The use of telebehavioral health has been expanding in the past decade to improve access to psychiatric care and address critical shortages in the psychiatric workforce. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic forced a sudden shift from traditional in-person visits to alternative modalities. There are key factors associated with successful transitional and large-scale implementation of telehealth with existing resources. We describe the experience of a large health care system using telehealth technology, and we identify strategies and discuss considerations for long-term sustainability after the pandemic.