Year 4 Projects

The following projects have been initiated for 2023-2024:

• The Effect of Prenatal Telehealth Use for Mental Health Screening on Mental Health-related Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations
• Principal Investigators: Mahip Acharya, PhD email: macharya@uams.edu, Cari A. Bogulski, PhD email:cbogulaksi@uams.edu, and Hari Eswaran, PhD email: eswaranhari@uams.edu
• Project funded:  September 2023
• Anticipated completion date: August 2024

Project description: This project will report trajectories of mental healthcare use and assess the effectiveness of mental health-related (defined as related to depression, anxiety and bipolar disorders) prenatal virtual visits in the subsequent one-year period among pregnant people. IQVIA Pharmetrics® claims for Academics database (2018–2022) and TriNetX medical records (2018–2023) will be used to estimate the relationship between the exposure of interest (prenatal mental health-related telehealth visits) and healthcare utilization outcomes.

• An Analysis of Resource Utilization at Telehealth Providers in the United States
• Principal Investigators: Burak Eksioglu, PhD email: burak@uark.edu, Sandra Eksioglu, PhD email: sandra@uark.edu
• Project funded: September 2023
• Anticipated completion date: August 2024

Project description: This project aims to conduct an extensive investigation into telehealth services across the United States. The primary objective is to thoroughly understand the implications of telehealth utilization on resource allocation at healthcare providers, with particular emphasis on the variations observed during the COVID-19 pandemic and in a post-pandemic landscape. The study will endeavor to identify key factors that influence telehealth adoption in different regions of the US, encompassing aspects pertaining to providers (e.g., location, size, offered specialties) as well as those related to patients (e.g., demographics, social and economic factors). Subsequently, we will analyze the impact of changes in telehealth usage on resource utilization at healthcare providers using metrics such as, patients per doctor, patients per nurse,  and appointment duration.

• The relationship between health equity, digital health literacy, and use of digital health services
• Principal Investigators: Cari A. Bogulski, PhD email: cbogulaski@uams.edu,  and Jennifer A. Andersen,  PhD email: JAAndersen@uams.edu
• Project funded: September 2023
• Anticipated completion date: August 2024

Project description: The role of digital health literacy is under-investigated contributor to health disparities in the perceptions and willingness to adopt telehealth technologies, such as electronic health records (EHR) and remote patient monitoring (RPM). The current study aims to fill this gap using the Health Information National Trends Survey (2022) data to identify the relationship between rural/urban status, race/ethnicity, and disability/chronic illness status with digital health literacy and experience with and  willingness to use audio/video telehealth, EHR and RPM.

• Budget impact and cost effectiveness of Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) services for hypertension management in older adults
• Principal Investigators: Mahip Acharya, PhD email: macharya@uams.edu
• Project funded: September 2023
• Anticipated completion date: August 2024

Project description: The project will evaluate budget impact, total healthcare costs, total effectiveness, incremental costs, and incremental effectiveness associated with RPM use for hypertension management in comparison with no RPM use among national fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries with hypertension. Healthcare costs will be expressed in 2021 U.S dollars, and effectiveness will be calculated as total life-years and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs).

• Differential Impact of Audio vs. Audiovisual vs. In person Healthcare Visits on Quality of Care by Race/Ethnicity, Rural/Urban, and Socioeconomic Status among Patients with Mental Health Disorders
• Principal Investigators: Corey Hayes, PharmD, PhD, MPH email: cjhayes@uams.edu,  and George Pro, PhD email: gcpro@uams.edu
• Project funded: September 2023
• Anticipated completion date: August 2024

Projection description: This project will compare the impact of different telehealth modalities on quality-of-care for different patient populations with a diagnosed substance use or mental health disorder (i.e., patients residing in rural vs. urban areas of the country, patients of differing races/ethnicities, and patients of differing socioeconomic statuses). The results of this study will inform clinical practice by identifying the most effective modes of telehealth delivery, overall and by subgroup. This approach will allow for tailoring telemedicine by identifying for which patient populations differing modes of telehealth delivery are most effective. This study will help ensure that all patients receive the highest quality and most equitable care possible.