PC1260: Advancing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Pediatric Virtual Care

Background: Healthcare organizations are promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace culture to support employee health and wellbeing, while also focusing on patient key healthcare indicators through the social determinants of health (sDoH) lens. Studies during the COVID-19 pandemic have investigated socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors that create barriers to health and well-being, which may negatively affect telehealth utilization. Inequitable adoption of virtual digital health platforms is influenced by the effect of sDoH. COVID-19 exacerbated existing health disparities and highlighted the need to explore areas of improvement.

Methods: In order to embed telehealth care provision across a pediatric teaching hospital, it was necessary to align the virtual care program to hospital-wide DEI initiatives. Our measurements focused on the following areas:

1. Program evaluation to address a specific known health disparity and examine the effect of sDoH and patient demographics on telehealth utilization.
2. Expanding data collection in the medical record on access by health disparity for patients who received virtual care with comparison to in-person services, including race, ethnicity, and primary language preferences.
3. Technology and platform enhancements to improve the patient’s digital journey such as enabling multiple languages in the application and integrating third-party interpreters to improve the experience.
4. Competence-building by targeting DEI specific educational goals for employees and providing training.

Metrics included the number of staff trainings; unique children served and number of virtual visits; wait time for an appointment); patient satisfaction; travel savings; and other metrics. Evaluation involved data analysis from clinical databases and tools including: the electronic health record (EHR); Business Intelligence Telehealth Dashboard; surveys; telehealth application reports and other tools. Process improvement, Lean methodologies and tools were used during program evaluation.

Results: A pediatric teaching hospital engaged DEI Champions and aligned leader goals to hospital-wide DEI initiatives. A roadmap was created for telehealth platform technological advances, considering language preferences of patients and families. Details will be shared on best practices and lessons learned focused on ensuring successful virtual care encounters for a culturally diverse community. Additionally, critical digital health capabilities and support services will be shared, to meet individualized patient needs, to overcome healthcare disparities and improve adoption to virtual-digital health platforms. Use cases, quality improvement projects and lessons learned will be presented showing positive outcomes in promoting health equity for underserved populations.

Conclusion: The results of this abstract will help inform the future of virtual care by addressing health disparities and DEI in care delivery, to improve access, control costs (such as travel) and optimize the patient experience. Telehealth was an effective strategic imperative to enhance access to care for diverse patient populations. Best practices and lessons learned will be highlighted to meet the needs of patients and families during the pandemic and beyond.