A scoping review of Australian allied health research in ehealth

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Abstract

Background

Uptake of e-health, the use of information communication technologies (ICT) for health service delivery, in allied health appears to be lagging behind other health care areas, despite offering the potential to address problems with service access by rural and remote Australians. The aim of the study was to conduct a scoping review of studies into the application of or attitudes towards ehealth amongst allied health professionals conducted in Australia.

Methods

Studies meeting inclusion criteria published from January 2004 to June 2015 were reviewed. Professions included were audiology, dietetics, exercise physiology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, podiatry, social work, and speech pathology. Terms for these professions and forms of ehealth were combined in databases of CINAHL (EBSCO), Cochrane Library, PsycINFO (1806 – Ovid), MEDLINE (Ovid) and AMED (Ovid).

Results

Forty-four studies meeting inclusion criteria were summarised. They were either trials of aspects of ehealth service delivery, or clinician and/or client use of and attitudes towards ehealth. Trials of ehealth were largely from two research groups located at the Universities of Sydney and Queensland; most involved speech pathology and physiotherapy. Assessments through ehealth and intervention outcomes through ehealth were comparable with face-to-face delivery. Clinicians used ICT mostly for managing their work and for professional development, but were reticent about its use in service delivery, which contrasted with the more positive attitudes and experiences of clients.

Conclusion

The potential of ehealth to address allied health needs of Australians living in rural and remote Australia appears unrealised. Clinicians may need to embrace ehealth as a means to radicalise practice, rather than replicate existing practices through a different mode of delivery.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1791-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Related collections

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Author and article information

Contributors

Teresa Iacono:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7988-9951

+613-5448-9110 , t.iacono@latrobe.edu.au

Kellie Stagg: +613-5448-9115 , k.stagg@latrobe.edu.au

Natalie Pearce: +613-5448-7562 , n.pearce@latrobe.edu.au

Alana Hulme Chambers: +61 3 5720 1715 , alana.hulme@unimelb.edu.au

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Health Serv Res

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Health Serv Res

Title: BMC Health Services Research

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1472-6963

Publication date (Electronic): 4 October 2016

Publication date PMC-release: 4 October 2016

Publication date Collection: 2016

Volume: 16

Electronic Location Identifier: 543

Affiliations

[1 ]La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University, PO Box 199, Bendigo, VIC 3550 Australia

[2 ]La Trobe University, PO Box 199, Bendigo, VIC 3550 Australia

[3 ]Department of Rural Health, University of Melbourne, Docker Street, Wangaratta, VIC 3677 Australia

Author information

Teresa Iacono http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7988-9951

Article

Publisher ID: 1791

DOI: 10.1186/s12913-016-1791-x

PMC ID: 5050606

PubMed ID: 27716325

SO-VID: cc308006-78aa-4972-a590-ccd0d96a948d

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 31 July 2015

Date accepted : 24 September 2016

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: ehealth,telehealth,telecare,telepractice,telerehabilitation,allied health,speech pathology,occupational therapy,podiatry,physiotherapy,social work,dietetics,exercise physiology

Data availability: