Purpose
Chronic disease is a growing health concern for all Canadians and is an important issue for all governments facing the need to manage aging populations. Telehealth is defined broadly as the use of technology to deliver health care services. More specifically for this project, home-based telehealth includes such things as patient support websites, home monitoring devices, email reminders and follow-ups from health care professionals and more. Home-based telehealth has the potential to improve healthcare through cost-savings and improved monitoring for patients living with a chronic disease. While many telehealth literature reviews have been conducted in general, much less is known about home-based telehealth specifically through the lens of patient, policy and provider perspectives. More importantly, many literature reviews are static and remain in the realm of academia.
Overview
This project puts forward a new model of literature review research that integrates policymakers, clinicians and health program directors (e.g. knowledge users) directly into the research design to co-create a synthesis that is informed by evidence and knowledge user needs. In addition to ongoing engagement of knowledge users throughout the project, mid- and end-project knowledge translation (KT) events are planned to promote continual exchange and dissemination of knowledge.
Highlights
- Initial review of literature complete and finalizing coding of the literature
- Held mid-project Knowledge translation workshop on June 14, 2011, which ran in conjunction with the annual BCATPR conference taking place in Vancouver, BC.
- Purpose of this workshop was to help us learn about the priorities of the knowledge users and the most effective ways to present the information
Project Partners
This project is being led by a collaborative team of both researchers and knowledge users including the UBC eHealth Strategy Office, UBC Library, BC Alliance for Telehealth Policy and Research, UBC Faculty of Medicine, and BC Health Authorities.This is a one year project funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) that began in October 2010.