At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy Krieger Institute developed a streamlined and personalized telehealth system for our patients and families.

We expanded telehealth services to 80 Kennedy Krieger patient care programs to continue to provide care, even when patients and families could not always be seen in-person at Kennedy Krieger Institute.

We learned that:

Telehealth Works Well for Most Families

• 94.3% of Kennedy Krieger Krieger patients reported that they were satisfied with the Institute’s telehealth services.

• 95.3% found telehealth easy to use.

• 96.1% felt that their information was kept private and confidential.

Kennedy Krieger families Want a Telehealth Option Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic

• 74.3% of parents would use telehealth again, even if an on-site appointment was an option.

• 84.2% of parents of adolescents would use telehealth again.

• 58.7% of parents of younger children would use telehealth again.

Telehealth May Help Reduce Current Healthcare Disparities

Telehealth may help reduce disparities by…

• Reducing parent burden through increased scheduling flexibility, resulting in decreased time that parents take off from work for their child’s appointments.

• Increasing the possibility of two parents or multiple caregivers participating in appointments.

• Increasing convenience by reducing the amount of travel and parking time required of patients and parents of patients.

• Increasing healthcare services for patients in geographic areas with limited specialty services for children with developmental, behavioral, and mental health disorders.

• Improving healthcare provider understanding of patient home-based resources and living environments

Read the abstract: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2773313

Online Tools Can Help Direct Patient Care

The Neuropsychology Department learned that when parents completed an online questionnaire prior to their child’s appointment, Kennedy Krieger could plan for a longer or shorter assessment day accordingly.

Read the abstract. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32969304/

Telehealth Can be Used for Many Screenings and Service-Delivery Options

The Kennedy Krieger Neuropsychology Department developed a three-level model of care using telehealth in clinical assessment.

Level 1: The provider reviews the child’s records and conducts a telehealth interview with the caregivers. The purpose is to answer a diagnostic question and provide recommendations for the child’s home or school setting.

Level 2: The provider conducts a record review, a telehealth interview , and targeted telehealth-based assessment to answer somewhat more complex diagnostic questions.

Level 3: The provider performs a record review and telehealth interview with the family, and then schedules an on-site, in-person assessment for patients with more complicated diagnostic questions or more disruptive behaviors.

Read more about the Neuropsychology model. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13854046.2020.1806359

Read specific case examples. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32757708/

The Department of Behavioral Psychology has used telehealth to help patients with disruptive behaviors make and maintain behavioral gains during treatment.  These services were initially offered to military families, and were vastly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic (https://doi.org/10.1080/02739615.2021.1987237).  Several case examples of behavioral therapists using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) via telehealth are presented below:

  • In this case example (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2021.103876), the behavioral therapist of a 20-year-old used telehealth to help a parent implement ABA, resulting in a reduction in challenging behavior and an increase in functional communication.
  • In this case example (https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.1870), a 27-year old patient’s self-injurious skin picking behaviors were reduced to near zero rates through an intensive outpatient admission.  Once treated, her behavioral therapist was able to provide training and consultation to her caregivers via telehealth and maintain these treatment gains for the next five months.

Telehealth Can be an Important Part of Inpatient Care

Kennedy Krieger’s Neuropsychology faculty collaborated with neuropsychologists across the country to develop a model combining telehealth with on-site, in-person care to support the rehabilitation of children and teens with brain injuries.

Read the abstract. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13854046.2020.1811892

Telehealth Services Can be Comparable to Onsite, In-Person Services

The Kennedy Krieger Neuropsychology Department compared tests results from onsite/in-person assessments to test results from telehealth assessments. The department found very few differences between the in-person and telehealth test results. Evidence shows that telehealth assessment can be validly used to evaluate intellectual and academic functioning.