Opportunities to Address Specialty Care Deserts and the Digital Divide through the Veterans Health Administration's Telehealth Hub-and-Spoke Cardiology Clinic: Retrospective Cohort Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

To address geographic barriers to specialty care access for services such as cardiology, the Veterans Health Administration (VA) has implemented a novel, regionalized telehealth care hub. The Clinical Resource Hub (CRH) model extends care, including cardiology services, to individuals in low-access communities across the region. Little is known, however, about the reach of such programs.

Objective

This study aimed to describe the initial CRH program implementation in terms of growth in users and clinical encounters, as well as the association between user characteristics and the use of CRH cardiology care, in VA's Sierra Pacific region (Northern California, Nevada, and the Pacific Islands).

Methods

We compared patients who used CRH cardiology services (CRH

SUBMITTER: Tisdale RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11638694 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature