ABSTRACT
Objective: The rapid rise of telemedicine, necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has changed how care is administered and created additional burdens for healthcare professionals. This study investigated how Diabetes Care and Education Specialists (DCES) have implemented telemedicine in their practices to identify possible areas for improvement. Method: 350 DCES from an opted-in US research panel were surveyed. Respondents were asked about their expected and present use of telemedicine, satisfaction with telemedicine versus in-person appointments, and perceived changes in the frequency of treatment decisions made over telemedicine compared to in-person. Result: On average, respondents reported that 57% of appointments were conducted using telemedicine this year and estimated a decrease in telemedicine use during 2021 (41%). While 67% of respondents were satisfied with in-person visits (selecting a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale), just 25% were satisfied with telemedicine visits. Analysis of verbatim comments revealed dissatisfaction with telemedicine stems from difficulty with teaching patients virtually (20%), technology use (18%), establishing personal connections with patients (16%), and obtaining patient device data (11%). DCES indicated that larger treatment decisions like starting new therapies/devices occur less often over telemedicine whereas adjusting patient's settings occurs more often. For example, relative to in-person visits, 64% report starting patients on new insulin pumps less often while 62% report adjusting pump settings just as often. Conclusion: Telemedicine has become a regular part of DCES's practices despite notable gaps in satisfaction and ability to make certain treatment decisions when compared with in-person visits. Although telemedicine may be a useful tool for adjusting doses and device settings, these findings emphasize the need for improvements surrounding virtual diabetes care to alleviate the challenges experienced by providers.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 global pandemic’s impact on education will take years to resolve. At this point, it is sensible to ponder the big questions of mathematics teaching and learning in disadvantaged contexts. This descriptive mixed-methods study is focused on the learners’ perceptions of the Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL) of mathematics during the COVID-19 lockdown. The study was conducted with 137 learners at public secondary schools in a disadvantaged context in South Africa. Purposive and stratified random sampling techniques were used to select the respondents. The data was collected through a Google-generated semi-structured questionnaire. Content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data from the open-response items. The quantitative data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. The findings were that most learners in resource-constrained contexts neither enjoyed nor benefitted from the ERTL of mathematics and preferred face-to-face classroom interactions with the teachers. Many learners stated that they were used to seeing the teachers’ gestures, body language, and facial expressions. Most learners indicated that it was challenging not to work in groups when solving mathematics problems and that they could not learn mathematics productively at home. Further findings were that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted learners in disadvantaged contexts since they did not have adequate digital resources and internet connectivity to learn mathematics remotely. The COVID-19 pandemic will end one day. Studying the learners’ perceptions of the ERTL assists in the creation of programmes that can enhance digital mathematics teaching and learning in disadvantaged contexts. © Authors