The future of telehealth
Bringing consumers and
researchers together
Health consumers are inviting UQ researchers to their tables to work out how to improve telehealth.
In 2022, UQ’s Faculty of Health and Behavioural Science and Faculty of Medicine created a Consumer and Community Network. The Network aimed to create connections between UQ researchers and people with lived experience who were interested in health and medical research, not just as research participants, but as collaborators across the entire research cycle.
One of the initiatives developed by the Network was an annual Consumer Roundtable, designed to bring consumers and researchers together to discuss a particular topic.
Telehealth was chosen as the focus topic for the first roundtable, which was held in the Brisbane suburb of Herston in late 2022.
“The consumer steering group chose telehealth as the focus because it was really topical,” lead researcher Dr Bec Jenkinson said.
“Everyone through the pandemic had experiences with accessing – or trying to access – telehealth.”
It’s also relevant to people in a variety of health situations, and we all saw it as an engaging and accessible topic for our first roundtable.”
The roundtable brought together 28 consumers and 22 researchers, and used the World Café method, which is designed to bring people together, in a safe, welcoming way to harness their collective wisdom.
“The idea is that we know more than we think we know, especially when we work together and bounce off each other,” said Dr Jenkinson.
The participants were also joined by a graphic illustrator, who listened to the conversations and captured them on a poster wall set up at the venue.
“The vibrant illustrations helped everyone see the areas of diversity and commonality across the small group conversations, which then prompted new directions and ideas,” said Dr Jenkinson.
The roundtable consisted of three rounds of small group discussions, with each round focusing on a different question:
- What does ‘telehealth’ mean to you? What counts as telehealth?
- When does telehealth work for you, and when doesn’t it?
- What do policy makers, health workers and decision-makers need to know about community perspectives on telehealth?
A consumer steering group led by Dr Jenkinson, including consumer research partners Dale Trevor, Leonie Young and Anja Christoffersen, designed the questions to elevate lived experience, promote shared learning and elicit different perspectives on the fundamental concepts of telehealth.
“The questions were designed to bridge a knowledge gap between researcher and consumer knowledge, and develop a shared understanding to move forward with,” said Ms Christoffersen.
“For example, consumer understandings of telehealth are broad and include phone calls and wearables.”
Participants were encouraged to move to a new table with people they hadn’t met yet for each round.
In the last session of the roundtable, everyone came together for a ‘harvest’ – a final, whole group discussion – centred on the question, “What do consumers want telehealth researchers to focus on next?”
A group of people discuss telehealth at the roundtable event.
A group of people discuss telehealth at the roundtable event.
Dr Jenkinson said the discussions revealed that consumers are very enthusiastic about telehealth, and the new healthcare options it opens up.
“Consumers really value the access to healthcare that telehealth creates – for example, people spoke about how it enabled them to access specialists who were geographically distant from them, or equally how it enabled them to continue relationships with trusted care providers when either they or the care provider had moved.”
She added that consumers see a lot of potential for telehealth to evolve in the future, such as greater use of video conferencing, and integrating technology such as wearables with healthcare.
The discussion also raised some of the challenges consumers face when accessing telehealth, including unfamiliar technology, unpredictable appointment times and privacy concerns.
“One exciting new area that came up was around how compassion is experienced and conveyed via telehealth,” said Dr Jenkinson.
“Obviously in person, you can offer a tissue or a glass of water, but how do healthcare professionals express compassion via telehealth? And how do consumers experience it?”
Image: A woman talks to a doctor via a video call. Nattakorn / Adobe Stock
Once the roundtable was completed, researchers took the priorities identified by the consumers and mapped them onto existing projects to see where researchers could connect with consumers who shared their interests.
“There were also exciting new ideas, and we have researchers picking those up, connecting with the consumers and developing new research projects to explore them,” said Dr Jenkinson.
Several of the projects that emerged from the roundtable are being led by Professor Trevor Russell and the team at RECOVER Injury Research Centre. They are exploring the impact of marketing materials on the perception and willingness to use telehealth for physiotherapy consultations, as well as investigating how a new eHealth model can enhance chronic pain management by extending onsite care and benefits to the community.
Roundtable graphic recording. Image: Rachel Apelt, ArtBalm
Roundtable graphic recording. Image: Rachel Apelt, ArtBalm
An article about the roundtable, co-authored with the consumer steering group, was also recently published in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare.
Following the success of the first consumer roundtable, the team were awarded a grant of just over $16,000 under the State Government’s Engaging Science Grants program for the next roundtable, which will be held in Dalby later this year.
This roundtable will see rural and regional health consumers invite researchers to their table to develop shared priorities for future research.
“We know that rural and regional Queenslanders face unique challenges due to their geographic location, and often have poorer health outcomes than people living in metropolitan areas. With the roundtable, we aim to seed new relationships between researchers and people with lived experience, so that game changing research might grow” said Dr Jenkinson.
Getting involved
Consumers interested in contributing to research are invited to join the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences and Faculty of Medicine Consumer and Community Involvement in Research mailing list.
Consumers who are interested in helping to improve telehealth service delivery are invited to join the Centre for Online Health’s Telehealth Consumer Reference Group.
Rachel Apelt from ArtBalm draws the roundtable graphic recording.
Rachel Apelt from ArtBalm draws the roundtable graphic recording.
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