Single-point intervention leads to more telemedicine use by Spanish-speaking families

Key takeaways:

• Researchers analyzed success of an electronic patient portal in Spanish and non-Spanish-speaking persons.
• Portal activation is likely to remain high with more Spanish-speaking providers.

ORLANDO — A single provider intervention led to a high rate of portal activation that led to greater telemedicine use among Spanish-speaking families with pediatric neurology needs, according to a poster.

“At the start of the pandemic there was a big discrepancy between our telemedicine visits and our use of the patient portal in patients who speak English versus those who speak Spanish,” Bianca C. Kapoor-Heaphy, MD, a child neurology resident in the division of neurology at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told Healio during a presentation at the American Epilepsy Society annual meeting.

Kapoor-Heaphy and colleagues attempted to build on an initial quality improvement study among families with pediatric epilepsy needs who did not speak English to boost telemedicine utilizations, They followed it with a study that sought to expand the single intervention to multiple providers while also creating a data collection entity to track activation by spoken language.

The researchers targeted Spanish-speaking families who did not have electronic patient portal access, but who were seen in a pediatric neurology clinic. Their intervention featured written instructions in Spanish before and during each visit, prompting of providers to ask about portal access and additional directions at the end of the visit to ask for further assistance if necessary.

Researchers divided the intervention into two cycles, one with a provision by a Spanish-speaking provider and the other with provisions by six Spanish and non-Spanish-speaking providers. In the first cycle, 17 patients were seen between March 2021 and July 2022 and 12 patients were seen in the second cycle between July 2022 and May 2023.

A chart review assessed rates and use of electronic patient portal activation for all participants.

According to results, portal activation rates were 71% (12 of 17) in the first cycle, with an 83% utilization rate (10 of 12); and 58% (seven of 12) in the second cycle with an 86% (six of seven) utilization rate.

Researchers additionally found that rates of portal use were similar for both interventions and rates of portal activation in Spanish-speaking families remained lower than in English-speaking families.

“There are a number of things that can help with activation,” Kapoor-Heaphy told Healio. “In-person activation was one of the more successful things, and while our interventions were providing paper support, it’s not a sustainable long-term outcome.”