PC1262: Telehealth and Health Equity Education: Teaching an Essential Topic to the Next Generation of Physicians

Background: Telehealth education and specific discussion of telehealth equity for health profession students has become critical and timely, following the COVID19-associated explosion of telehealth. In 2020, the Association of American Medical Colleges designated telehealth equity as a competency for medical students (and more senior trainees). However, there is minimal understanding of teaching best practices for this topic. More locally, a needs assessment was performed at our medical school shortly after the pandemic’s onset which identified a need for new curricular content addressing telehealth’s impact on health equity.

Methods: A telehealth curriculum director, hired in response to the needs assessment, was tasked with incorporating education on telehealth and health equity into the core clinical year’s curriculum. Iterative discussion with the clinical curriculum dean was used to develop an innovative session that was piloted with a small student cohort in a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) focused on health equity and advocacy. Following the pilot, this session was implemented for all medical students during their Community and Primary Care (CPC) clerkship or LIC year. Standardized quantitative and qualitative student course feedback from the 4 CPC sessions in 2021 were then retrospectively evaluated to assess students’ perceptions.

Results: The final session was 1.5 hours long, developed for teaching in virtual or in-person small group format, and reliant on active learning. During the first 30 minutes, students independently review the public’s perception of telehealth’s utility and its barriers on the internet. The remaining 60 minutes are split between facilitated group discussion and didactic presentation on how various virtual care delivery modalities and policies positively or negatively impact health equity (Figure 1). Feedback from 88 third-year medical students (16-25/session) was obtained with a mean score of 4 (scale: 1-5) for each of 3 standardized student evaluation questions. There was no notable trend in these scores over time, and summative content review of responses to “Please provide any additional feedback” supported the scores. Additionally, comments indicated that students developed a broader understanding of the topic, most valued the discussion-based format, and some desired more suggestions on how to best use telehealth for specific populations (Table 1). Early session students also reported that some content was repetitive, leading to adaption and resolution of this concern in later sessions.

Conclusion: Telehealth and health equity education is feasible during medical students’ core clinical year using a mixed teaching format. Feedback indicates that this innovative session was consistently delivered and valued by students, with students particularly appreciating its interactive nature while also asking for more practical tips. Next steps include adding more recommendations when engaging with diverse populations, ensuring the session can be consistently facilitated by new faculty, and determining if the content changes students’ practice.