Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Jun 25, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 27, 2025 - Aug 22, 2025
Date Accepted: Sep 17, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Designing for Equity in Virtual Hospital at Home: A Quality Improvement Initiative Using Experience-Based Co-Design
ABSTRACT
Background:
Virtual Hospital at Home services have the potential to improve care access and outcomes, but rapid implementation during COVID-19 lacked patient-centered development, raising concerns about equity and engagement.
Objective:
To co-design solutions that support equitable, patient-centered Virtual Hospital at Home services using an Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) approach.
Methods:
We conducted a five-stage improvement process in Fraser Health Authority, British Columbia, including (1) forming a multi-disciplinary steering committee; (2) reviewing provider experiences; (3) interviewing South Asian patients and caregivers; (4) hosting a co-design workshop to develop solutions; and (5) sharing back findings.
Results:
Participants identified barriers including digital literacy, language, and trust in virtual care. Co-designed solutions focused on culturally tailored education, hybrid digital training, caregiver inclusion, and community-driven engagement strategies.
Conclusions:
EBCD enabled the development of inclusive and actionable strategies to improve Virtual Hospital at Home services. Findings highlight the importance of ongoing community collaboration to ensure equity in virtual care innovation.
Citation
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Copyright
© 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.