Professor Tiffany Veinot

Equity Implications of Healthcare Technologies: Explaining Differential Telehealth Uptake, Use and Quality in Marginalized Groups

In the United Kingdom (UK), United States (US) and elsewhere, healthcare is increasingly delivered via telehealth technologies like videoconferencing. Although some patients benefit from such technologies, those with less resources or who face more care barriers may use them less often than those with more advantages. It is unclear why such disparities emerge as they are not explained by technology access alone.

This Visiting Fellowship will support collaborative research for a US-based scholar and faculty at the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University. To explain disparities, the study will compare US-based findings documenting telehealth use disparities since the COVID-19 pandemic to UK-based experiences with telehealth during the same timeframe. Case studies will compare already-collected data from the US to UK-based electronic health record/telehealth, interview, and survey data to be collected and analysed at two to four healthcare sites chosen based on their differing equity outcomes, settings and patient characteristics.