×
Home Current Archive Editorial board
News Contact
Opinion/Perspectives/Commentary

Identification of Gaps in Graduate Medical Education Telehealth Training

By
Matthew Sakumoto Orcid logo ,
Matthew Sakumoto
Ryan Jelinek ,
Ryan Jelinek
Aditi Joshi
Aditi Joshi

Abstract

Objective To identify, describe, and address gaps in telehealth training at the graduate medical education level Materials and Methods We designed a 12-question survey to capture the telehealth experiences and educational opportunities for residents and fellows in the Minneapolis/St Paul, MN region. Results There were 213 responses from 51 different specialties across 7 levels of training (PGY1-7). 66% had previously completed a telehealth visit, 89% stated that they had not performed any telehealth prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and only 15% of respondents had any formal telehealth training. Conclusions & Recommendations While telehealth volumes have seen exponential increases, training on how to effectively and efficiently carry out telehealth visits for medical trainees at the GME level has remained relatively stagnant or even non-existent. We provide examples of specialty-specific telehealth competencies, and hope that improving telehealth training quality will ultimately expand access, improve outcomes of chronic disease management and strengthen the patient-provider relationship across all specialties.

References

1.
2.
Pathipati AS, Azad TD, Jethwani K. Telemedical Education: Training Digital Natives in Telemedicine. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2016;18(7):e193.
3.
Stovel RG, Gabarin N, Cavalcanti RB, Abrams H. Curricular needs for training telemedicine physicians: A scoping review. Medical Teacher. 2020;42(11):1234–42.
4.
AAMC.
5.
Accessed.
6.
Pourmand A, Ghassemi M, Sumon K, Amini SB, Hood C, Sikka N. Lack of Telemedicine Training in Academic Medicine: Are We Preparing the Next Generation? Telemedicine and e-Health. 2021;27(1):62–7.
7.
Wong R, Ng P, Spinnato T, Taub E, Kaushal A, Lerman M, et al. Expanding Telehealth Competencies in Primary Care: A Longitudinal Interdisciplinary Simulation to Train Internal Medicine Residents in Complex Patient Care. Journal of Graduate Medical Education. 2020;12(6):745–52.
8.
Ha E, Zwicky K, Yu G, Schechtman A. Developing a Telemedicine Curriculum for a Family Medicine Residency. PRiMER. 2020;4.
9.
Hindman DJ, Kochis SR, Apfel A, Prudent J, Kumra T, Golden WC, et al. Improving Medical Students’ OSCE Performance in Telehealth: The Effects of a Telephone Medicine Curriculum. Academic Medicine. 2020;95(12):1908–12.
10.
Telepsychiatry practice guidelines.
11.
Menon DU, Belcher HME. COVID-19 Pandemic Health Disparities and Pediatric Health Care—The Promise of Telehealth. JAMA Pediatrics. 2021;175(4):345.

Citation

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 

Article metrics

Google scholar: See link

The statements, opinions and data contained in the journal are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publisher and the editor(s). We stay neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.