Impact of telehealth on access to care for community-dwelling older adults with chronic illness.
Telehealth has great potential for providing timely and comprehensive care to community-dwelling older adults while reducing their barriers to healthcare access. The purpose of this study is to understand how older adults with chronic diseases access healthcare services in their community and evaluate the impact of telehealth on access to care from a self-reported survey conducted in British Columbia. About a quarter of older adult participants reported barriers to healthcare access in their community. Participants frequently reported financial barriers to healthcare access regardless of telehealth use. In addition, telehealth users more frequently reported a lack of necessary healthcare services in their community and physical barriers to access to care. Although the findings did not demonstrate a significant difference in access to care between telehealth users and nonusers, telehealth was identified as a meaningful care delivery tool for older adults with barriers to healthcare access. Further efforts are needed to implement a valid tool for ongoing evaluation and optimization of telehealth and integrate telehealth into clinical and community programs to reduce physical and financial barriers to healthcare access for community-dwelling older adults with chronic illnesses.