The lead author of a recent study indicated that increased telehealth access could benefit residents in independent living and assisted living, and she disputed the attitudes behind survey findings that telehealth is dangerous for older adults.

In response to a nationwide online survey by The Collaborative for Telehealth and Aging, led by West Health, more than 7,200 doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers shared their thoughts on uses of telehealth for people aged 65 and older. “Perceptions and Uses of Telehealth in the Care of Older Adults” was published online Dec. 9, 2022, in advance of print in Telemedicine and e-Health.

More than half of respondents (55%) indicated that “telehealth improves healthcare for older adults by enhancing engagement between stakeholders.” Over half (65%) use at least one age-friendly practice with telehealth, such as accounting for older adults’ physical and cognitive differences.

However, nearly 60% of respondents overall believe it’s “dangerous” to provide telehealth to older adults due to patients’ medical complexities, according to a statement by Liane Wardlow, Ph.D., senior director of Clinical Research and Telehealth at West Health and a lead author of the study. Wardlow’s statement calls this finding “a red flag that may indicate some level of age bias.” The statement added, “These findings tell us loud and clear that healthcare providers need better support, more education and specialized guidelines to provide effective and equitable telehealth to older patients.”

Another 60% of respondents overall say telehealth is an unrealistic option for seniors with physical or cognitive challenges, to which Wardlow expressed shock. “Our telehealth infrastructures must be designed to account for these factors,” Wardlow said in the statement. “The greatest danger of all would be to exclude older patients from remote care.”

Responses from 1,600 geriatric-only clinicians identified these concerns:

• Relationship-building is more difficult with telehealth, and lack of staff capacity and older adults’ resources limit telehealth (62%)
• Older adults’ significant physical or cognitive challenges make telehealth unrealistic, as does lack of support from health system leadership and staff, and telehealth can fragment care (61%)
• People over a certain age cannot be well cared for using telehealth (59%)
• Providing telehealth is dangerous to older adults because their care needs are so medically complex (57%)

Telehealth Benefits in Independent and Assisted Living In “Senior living faces unique challenges in implementing widespread telehealth use,” a recent McKnight’s Senior Living article, Wardlow noted that it can be more difficult for independent and assisted living communities to offer telehealth. Residents often have various providers and initiate telehealth sessions on their own and are healthier. Yet telehealth access could lower these communities’ medical transportation costs, broaden residents’ access to providers, and raise resident satisfaction, Wardlow told McKnight’s. These communities could provide their residents with education, tech support, a room with telehealth technology, and partnerships with local providers, Wardlow said.

CMS Waivers Ending Would Curtail Telehealth Access

Survey results also indicated that if pandemic telehealth flexibilities and reimbursement offered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ended, survey respondents would reduce telehealth services (43%), maintain telehealth services and offset the cost (32%), or eliminate telehealth services (24%). The study’s authors noted that losing the waivers would “lead to a reversal of the benefits we have seen from telehealth over the past few years.”

LeadingAge CAST Telehealth Resource

If you are considering implementing telehealth at your organization, be sure to use the CAST Telehealth and RPM Selection Tool. This tool will help you to learn about telehealth technologies and narrow the choices available on the market to ones that are the best fit for your organization’s needs.