Successes and challenges in a field-based, multi-method study of home telehealth.
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Date
2004-12-17
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Abstract
We are conducting a three year study of telehealth in 11 home care offices that serve rural clients in Alberta Three hundred and twenty palliative home care clients are being recruited to participate in a randomized controlled trial RCT to answer three questions about the use of video phones and their effect on symptom management quality of life and cost as well as readiness to use the technology Both successes and challenges have been identified in three main areas technology people organizational issues and study design Maintaining study integrity has been the key factor in decision making as adjustments from the original proposal are made It is already clear that field based RCTs are feasible but require commitment and flexibility on the part of researchers and community partners to work through the study implementation