Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: May 2, 2023
Date Accepted: Jul 16, 2024
Using School-based Tele Consultation Services (TCS) to Make Community Health Services Accessible in Semi-Rural Settings of Pakistan: Mixed Method Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Remote areas of Pakistan do not have access to quality healthcare and experienced healthcare professionals within their communities. Telehealth increases the accessibility of healthcare services, using innovative solutions such as teleconsultation and school settings can be utilized as a powerful healthcare platform.
Objective:
This study aims to explore the effectiveness of introducing school-based Tele-Consultation Services (TCS) in strengthening community health in a semi-rural area of Karachi, Pakistan
Methods:
This study employed a mixed-method design to address the objectives. The total number of students who were enrolled for the quantitative component was 393 while 35 parents, teachers, and stakeholders of the community participated in the qualitative arm (focused group discussion) study. Proportional computation was done for the quantitative data using SPSS version 24, while qualitative data underwent thematic analysis guided by Creswell 2013.
Results:
A total of 1046 successful teleconsultations were provided over 28 months, Only 1.24% (13) cases required referrals. The qualitative analysis yielded three themes. i) transformation of the healthcare experience, ii) escalating demands for teleconsultation, and iii) the psychological aspect of care.
Conclusions:
This study shows that TCS has made healthcare services strong and accessible to the community and has effectively addressed a significant number of health issues of children at the government school in semi-rural Karachi, Pakistan TCS is an effective solution to provide healthcare services to school-going children in remote low-resourced communities with nurses being primary care providers. This model school approach can be utilized to enhance the accessibility of healthcare services to a larger scale addressing health issues to minimize morbidity and the overall burden on the healthcare system of the country in the longer run.
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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.