These Are Some Useful Tips To Help Improve The Telehealth Consultation And Experience For Older Patients.

This appeared last week.

7 tips for better telehealth consults with older patients

Wear a headset, speak slowly and assume older patients have some hearing loss: Checklist

14th August 2020

By Reuters Health

With many consults moving online, a group of geriatricians has created a checklist for doctors to help improve the experience for older patients.

The advice includes asking them to wear a headset, speaking slowly and assuming older patients have some hearing loss even if they aren't aware of it, the US authors write in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The checklist was devised after Dr Esther Oh, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Memory and Alzheimer's Treatment Center in Baltimore, witnessed firsthand the difficulties her older patients faced.

Alongside hearing loss, barriers to efficient telehealth use include internet speed, inadequate minutes on patients' phones and a noisy environment, the authors say.

These are their seven tips on improving telehealth consults with older patients:  

1. Before an appointment, confirm a patient's preferences, whether by phone or video, and ask questions about technology access and proficiency, privacy concerns and limits to Internet access or data plans.
2. Encourage patients to wear headphones and confirm whether they can wear hearing aids or an amplification device. Patients may be able to use the speaker function on a phone as a backup.

Five extra tips below.

https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/7-tips-better-telehealth-consults-older-patients

Here is the available abstract:

11 Aug 2020

Connecting With Older Adults via Telemedicine

Carrie L. Nieman, MD, MPH

Esther S. Oh, MD, PhD

Routine outpatient visits have rapidly transitioned to telemedicine because of the evolving coronavirus pandemic. In the rush toward telemedicine, our older adults may be at particular risk for missing out or misunderstanding their providers. Hearing loss is almost universal among older adults: Approximately two thirds of persons aged 70 years or older have clinically significant hearing loss (1). Age-related hearing loss occurs gradually and frequently leaves older patients with the sense that their hearing is adequate but that clarity is the issue and others mumble. Clinic-based visits, which are generally face to face in a quiet environment, allow hearing loss…..

Here is the link:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1322

The level of hearing loss in the elderly is a lot higher than I thought so the article makes some good points.

David.