Key Considerations in Ensuring a Safe Regional Telehealth Care Model: A Systematic Review

Background: This literature review sets out to increase the knowledge on patient safety within the telehealth modality of care, to inform the relevant local health service departments on the key considerations to minimize patient harm. Methods: A systematic search in Medline and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Google Scholar, and the University of New England (UNE) Library Search was conducted. A combination of key terms "Telehealth" OR "Telecare" OR "Telemedicine" AND "patient safety" AND "rural" was used. Based on the screening and eligibility criteria, 21 peer-reviewed articles published in English between 2015 and 2020 were included in the review. Results and Discussion: On evaluating the included studies, three main themes and various corresponding subthemes emerged. The main themes were that of telehealth experience (TE), telehealth outcomes (TO), and telehealth risks (TR), with the corresponding subthemes of telehealth experience from a patient perspective (TE-PT), telehealth experience from a carer perspective (TE-CR), telehealth experience from a clinician perspective (TE-CN), positive telehealth (TO-P), and negative telehealth outcomes (TO-N), and patient (TR-PT) and clinician telehealth risks (TR-CN). Conclusions: The results suggest that patients generally have positive experiences and are accepting telehealth as a modality of care. Furthermore, patient outcomes appear to be comparable with in-person care, with additional benefits of lower costs to both the service and patients.