"I was Unsure at First": A Qualitative Evaluation of Patient Perceptions of VA Clinical Video Telehealth Visits in the V-IMPACT Program

Ashley C Mog; Megan Moldestad; Rachael Kenney; Lauren Stevenson; Marcie Lee; P Michael Ho; George G Sayre

doi:10.1177/23743735221107237

"I was Unsure at First": A Qualitative Evaluation of Patient Perceptions of VA Clinical Video Telehealth Visits in the V-IMPACT Program

J Patient Exp. 2022 Jul 3:9:23743735221107237. doi: 10.1177/23743735221107237. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ashley C Mog^{1

2

3}, Megan Moldestad^{1

2

3}, Rachael Kenney^{1

4}, Lauren Stevenson^{1

5}, Marcie Lee^{1

4}, P Michael Ho^{1

4

6}, George G Sayre^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ The VA Collaborative Evaluation Center (VACE), Seattle, WA, Aurora, CO, Cleveland, OH, USA.
² Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA, USA.
³ University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁴ Veterans Affairs Eastern Colorado Health Care System, Denver, CO, USA.
⁵ Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, USA.
⁶ University of Colorado Anschutz, Aurora, CO, USA.

Abstract

Virtual Integrated Multi-Site Patient Aligned Care Team (V-IMPACT) was a Veterans Health Administration (VHA) initiative created to increase access to primary care for Veterans through Clinical Video Telehealth (CVT) appointments. Between January and August 2019, we conducted 48 semi-structured qualitative interviews with Veterans who had a V-IMPACT appointment. Many participants shared feelings of skepticism before their first appointments but for some, their opinions changed. Veterans talked about how their opinion of video care changed for the better when it made care more convenient or timelier or met their health care needs. For some Veterans, their opinion about video care stayed the same or worsened because they had a poor relationship or rapport with their provider, did not feel like they received needed care, or did not feel like video care was useful. These findings offer an opportunity for telecare providers to better understand and support patients and to deliver effective care in the context of rapidly growing telehealth modalities.

Keywords: Veterans; patient perspectives/narratives; qualitative content analysis; rural healthcare; telehealth.