Long-Stay Nursing Home Residents with Dementia: Telemedicine Mental Health Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Qiuyuan Qin, Helena Temkin-Greener, Adam Simning and 2 others
PMID 39740765WHAT IT FOUND
Telemedicine mental health use was 7.1% among long-stay nursing home residents with dementia in 2021.
Facility-level patterns stood out: homes with more Black residents used it less, and homes with more Hispanic residents used it more.
Key findings
01In the cohort, 7.1% of long-stay nursing home residents with dementia had any telemedicine mental health visit, and 20.3% of those with mental health visits used telemedicine mental health.
02Among residents who had mental health visits, the Black-White difference at the resident level was not statistically significant after nursing home and community adjustment, while homes with more Black residents were less likely to use telemedicine mental health and homes with more Hispanic residents were more likely.
03Residents with severe cognitive impairment were less likely to use telemedicine mental health, and among residents receiving mental health care, those in homes with higher registered nurse staffing were more likely to use it.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only Medicare fee-for-service residents were included, so results may not apply to residents enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. The data were from 2021 only, and telemedicine mental health use may have changed after the pandemic. Asian, Pacific Islander, other, and unknown race or ethnicity groups were excluded, limiting generalizability across all residents. The study counted telemedicine mental health visits, not whether the visits improved depression, anxiety, aggression, hospitalization risk, or other resident outcomes. Administrative data did not measure technology infrastructure, digital literacy, language support, staff burden, or the reasons facilities and residents used telemedicine. The study was observational, so associations with facility racial composition, rurality, staffing, and cognitive status do not prove causes.
Declared interests
The authors declared no known conflicts of interest. The article is labeled as supported by NIH extramural and non-U.S. government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the lower telemedicine mental health use in homes with more Black residents as proof of resident preference or a proven cause. The study observed claims data in one year and did not test a telemedicine program or measure why facilities used telemedicine.