Exploring virtual allied health professional clinics v. separate face-To-face outpatient meetings prior to a child’s bone marrow transplant

ABSTRACT

This presentation discusses how the realignment of resources at Great Ormond Street Hospital during the pandemic permitted the development of a new virtual form of service delivery for families, prior to a child’s bone marrow transplant. The new format both facilitated interprofessional working and reduced the need for families to attend multiple meetings.Prior to the pandemic, different allied health professionals (AHPs) (occupational therapist, physiotherapist, social worker and clinical psychologist) each met families separately during their out-patient appointment, prior to the child’s bone marrow transplant. Despite the different specific concerns of the various AHPs, the separate assessments were often repetitive and inefficient, with families feeding back that meeting the AHPs separately was ‘too much’. There had long been a wish within the Bone Marrow Transplant Department to run a joint AHPs clinic, but this was thwarted by limitations of time and office space.During the COVID-19 pandemic, the expansion of virtual means of service delivery provided the opportunity to establish a virtual clinic (O’Reilly et al 2021), which all AHPs could attend simultaneously. It was anticipated that this would be cost-effective for AHPs, reduce the need for families to repeat information to different professionals, and lessen the extent to which families felt overwhelmed by the experience.The presentation will summarise the issues involved, and the benefits and disadvantages of this new arrangement for both AHPs and families. It will consider whether families will continue to opt for virtual clinics post-pandemic or whether a desire for face-to-face clinics will return.