JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 health crisis has disproportionately impacted populations who have been historically marginalized in health care and public health, including low-income and racial and ethnic minority groups. Members of marginalized communities experience undue barriers to accessing health care through virtual care technologies, which have become the primary mode of ambulatory health care delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper we review insights arising from literature on health equity and virtual care in the COVID-19 pandemic published between March-July 2020, describing strategies that have been proposed in the literature at three levels: (1) Policy and government, (2) Organizations and health systems, and (3) Communities and patients. We then highlight three strategies for promoting health equity through virtual care that have been under-addressed in this literature, including (1) Simplifying complex interfaces and workflows; (2) Using supportive intermediaries; and (3) Creating mechanisms through which marginalized community members can provide immediate input into the planning and delivery of virtual care. We conclude by suggesting that much further work must be done to ensure that relying on virtual care during the COVID-19 era does not exacerbate existing inequalities in access to health services or health outcomes.