Telehealth for ABI Community Rehabilitation Project

Description

This was a collaborative project between Menzies Institute, Griffith University, RECOVER Injury Research Centre, University of Queensland, ABIOS and the Metro South Health telehealth unit. This qualitative study aimed to explore the perceptions of rehabilitation coordinators, individuals with ABI, and family caregivers on the usability and acceptability of videoconferencing in community-based rehabilitation.

Rationale

The geographic distribution of people with acquired brain injury across urban, regional and rural areas in Australia, combined with a growing impetus to explore new and cost-effective methods of service delivery in rehabilitation, suggest that telerehabilitation may have a role to play. There is limited research however on the use of telerehabilitation platforms in service delivery for people with acquired brain injury.

Participants

Rehabilitation coordinators, individuals with ABI and family caregivers

Key Features

New research collaboration

Introduction of notion of delivering telehealth technology to individual workstations

Establishing acceptability of videoconferencing for service delivery

New methods for expanding service delivery capacity

Funding

Internally funded within individual researcher roles with research assistant support from RECOVER Injury Research Centre

Research/Evaluation Strategies

Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis,1989)

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 participants (13 rehabilitation coordinators, 9 individuals with ABI and 8 family caregivers)

Demonstration of a prototype of a telehealth portal

Outputs and Outcomes

Videoconferencing was used on average for only 2% of client consultations. Four major factors influenced the uptake of videoconferencing platforms, namely the context or impetus for use, perceived benefits, potential problems and parameters around use, and balancing the service and user needs. While generally positively received, videoconferencing was considered a medium to be considered on a case-by-case basis and trial implementation was needed to establish feasibility.

Publications

Ownsworth, T., Theodoros, D., Cahill, L., Vaezipour, A., Quinn, R., Kendall, M., Moyle, W., & Lucas, K. (2020). Perceived usability and acceptability of videoconferencing for delivering community-based rehabilitation to individuals with acquired brain injury: A qualitative investigation. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 26, 47-57.