Evidence Hub

Hospital-Level Implementation Barriers, Facilitators, and Willingness to Use a New Regional Disaster Teleconsultation System: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

T. Boyle, K. Boggs, Jing-Ya Gao, M. McMahon, R. Bedenbaugh, Lauren Schmidt, K. Zachrison, E. Goralnick et al.

JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 2023

154 participants · 9 citations

Abstract

Background The Region 1 Disaster Health Response System project is developing new telehealth capabilities to provide rapid, temporary access to clinical experts across US jurisdictions to support regional disaster health response. Objective To guide future implementation, we identified hospital-level barriers, facilitators, and willingness to use a novel regional peer-to-peer disaster teleconsultation system for disaster health response. Methods We used the National Emergency Department Inventory-USA database to identify all 189 hospital-based and freestanding emergency departments (EDs) in New England states. We digitally or telephonically surveyed emergency managers regarding notification systems used for large-scale no-notice emergency events, access to consultants in 6 disaster-relevant specialties, disaster credentialing requirements before system use, reliability and redundancy of internet or cellular service, and willingness to use a disaster teleconsultation system. We examined state-wise hospital and ED disaster response capability. Results Overall, 164 (87%) hospitals and EDs responded—126 (77%) completed telephone surveys. Most (n=148, 90%) receive emergency notifications from state-based systems. Forty (24%) hospitals and EDs lacked access to burn specialists; toxicologists, 30 (18%); radiation specialists, 25 (15%); and trauma specialists, 20 (12%). Among critical access hospitals (CAHs) or EDs with <10,000 annual visits (n=36), 92% received routine nondisaster…

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free