JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Since the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic, telehealth has been widely adopted in outpatient settings in the United States. Although telehealth visits are publicly accepted in different settings, little is known after wide adoption of telehealth from the perspectives of adults living with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and their providers.

Objective:

To enhance user experience and promote care continuity, it is important to explore patient’s and providers’ experiences and perceptions of telehealth visits in T2DM care.

Methods:

As the second phase of a multi-method study to understand missed appointments among adults with T2DM, we conducted semi-structured individual in-depth phone or zoom interviews with 23 adults with T2DM (61% women, mean age 55.1, range 35-77 years, SD 14.4 years) and 10 providers from diabetes clinics in a tertiary academic medical center in Maryland. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a thematic content analysis by the research team.

Results:

Adults with T2DM and their providers generally reported positive experiences with telehealth visits for diabetes care with some technical challenges, resulting in the needs for in-person visits. Three themes were identified: “Perceived Benefits of Telehealth Visits” shared by both patients and providers, “Perceived Technological Challenges of Telehealth Visits” shared by both patients and providers, and “Clinical Implications of telehealth visits” mainly from providers’ perspectives with some patients’ inputs.

Conclusions:

Telehealth is generally received positively in diabetes care with some challenges persisted, which might compromise the quality of the diabetes care. Telehealth technology design must corporate user experience and user-centered design to optimize telehealth use in diabetes care. Future research to investigate the ideal balance between in-person and telehealth visits in diabetes care is warranted to promote the quality of diabetes care to optimize diabetes outcomes.