Date of Award
Spring 5-2022
Document Type
DNP Project
Project Team Faculty Member
Dr. Mary Lee Barron
Project Team Faculty Member
Dr. Valerie Griffin
Project Team Faculty Member
Dr. Bernadette Sobczak
Keywords
telehealth in schools, rural communities, medically underserved areas, school-based health clinics, grant funding, accessible healthcare
Abstract
The benefits of remote telehealth assessment kits and their use in school-based settings were explored in this Quality Improvement project. The primary goal was to examine rural school-based settings and explore options to fulfill healthcare care gaps. A secondary objective was to explore telehealth systems and identify one that provided thorough diagnostic evaluation abilities. A tertiary objective was to educate potential users of the identified system and assess the perceived ease of use and practicality. A cohort of 58 doctoral candidates and 11 staff members from a local school district were educated on the advantages of using telehealth and received a demonstration of TytoCare’s medical exam kit. In the pre-survey, only five (7.25%) respondents reported being very familiar with the process of telehealth. However, 53 (76.81%) reported being very or somewhat familiar of the benefits of telehealth. After the interactive demonstration, the post-survey revealed 53 (91.38%) participants felt comfortable using telehealth in their future practice. Furthermore, 56 (96.55%) participants felt confident they could use the demonstrated skills in future practice. The use of telehealth may be a viable option to meet healthcare gaps in rural settings. However, the adoption of these practices would require support from healthcare providers and their respective clinics. An option for project continuation would be to perform a cost-analysis of the difference between using these telehealth systems versus implementing an in-person clinic. Additionally, a future project could implement this system in an underserved area to identify the advantages and disadvantages of use in practice.
Recommended Citation
Chapman, Kourtney; Rhodes, Mia; and Smith, Jordan, "Exploring the Use of Telehealth in a School-Based Health Center" (2022). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 207.
https://spark.siue.edu/dnpprojects/207
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