Mitigating effects of telehealth uptake on disparities in maternal care access, quality, outcomes, and expenditures during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Project Summary The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant social, healthcare, and economic devastation in the United States (US), potentially exacerbating the maternal health disparities facing rural women and women of color. Telehealth represents a promising opportunity to reducing disparities in maternal health access, quality, and outcomes, given its substantial range of opportunities, including audiovisual synchronous and asynchronous encounters between patients and providers, remote patient monitoring, facilitating visual communication of evidence-based practice, and supporting clinical decision-making. Yet, multilevel barriers might hinder some underserved women from fully benefiting from telehealth. Expanded federal and state-level telehealth coverage through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and state policies may be mitigating the detrimental effects of this unprecedented pandemic by reducing gaps in access to telehealth and quality maternity care. Although self-reported data indicated abrupt increases in telehealth uptake during the pandemic, limited real-world data are available regarding the role of perinatal telehealth uptake on the pandemic’s effects and the role of state level policy in telehealth adaptation during COVID-19. This longitudinal, real-world data study will use recurring national electronic health records (EHR) data [National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C)] and integrated statewide population-based data in South Carolina and Florida which complement the overrepresentation of urban populations in N3C. With multiple innovative approaches using common data modeling, multi-level imputation for missingness, and Bayesian statistics simulation methods, this study aims to: 1) investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal care access, quality, and maternal and birth outcomes by maternal race/ethnicity and rural/urban residence; 2) examine whether perinatal telehealth uptake mitigates the pandemic's effects on disparities in maternal care access, quality, and outcomes by maternal race/ethnicity and rural/urban residence; and 3) assess how state-level telehealth policies (relaxation for originating sites, reimbursements for store-and- forward services, remote patient monitoring, and provider expansion) – relate to perinatal telehealth uptake by race-ethnicity and rural/urban residence. We will also 4) develop a stochastic simulation model to predict long-term changes in maternal care access, quality, outcomes, and expenditures of maternity care, with and without each respective state telehealth policy. Our overarching goal is to advance the understanding of the three-way intersections among the COVID-19 pandemic, state telehealth policy, and perinatal telehealth uptake on health disparities facing vulnerable maternal populations – rural and racial/ethnic minority women. We have formed a multidisciplinary team of investigators, including maternal health services researchers, health policy analysts, telehealth experts, senior clinical researchers, perinatal epidemiologists, rural health advocates, health psychologist, big data analysts, and machine learning experts to conduct this study.