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‘It's a different way to do medicine’: Exploring the affordances of telehealth for hepatitis C healthcare
journal contribution
posted on 2022-11-24, 23:24 authored by Renae FomiattiRenae Fomiatti, F Shaw, S FraserWhile the use of telehealth was common in hepatitis C healthcare in Australia in remote and regional areas prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been used more broadly to improve access to hepatitis C heathcare during the pandemic. Despite its widespread uptake, little research has explored how telehealth shapes hepatitis C healthcare. In this article, we draw on the concept of affordances (Latour, 2002) and interviews with 25 healthcare practitioners to explore the emergent possibilities for hepatitis C care that take shape through telehealth. Despite suggestions that telehealth is comparable to in-person care, healthcare practitioners’ accounts suggest that telehealth significantly changes the nature of their experience of providing healthcare for hepatitis C. According to these service practitioners, while it increased access to hepatitis C healthcare during the pandemic, it also afforded narrower, less personal healthcare encounters, with a focus on simple and singular issues, and reduced opportunities for communication and rapport. These affordances also discouraged the use of interpreters and by extension the inclusion of patients from non-English speaking backgrounds. However, the data collected also suggest that telehealth has the potential to afford more informal and relaxed healthcare environments and dispositions between healthcare practitioners and patients, potentially disrupting classic practitioner-patient power dynamics. In concluding, the article considers how telehealth models of care might better afford quality hepatitis C healthcare and care beyond COVID-19 pandemic conditions.
History
Journal
International Journal of Drug PolicyVolume
110Article number
103875Pagination
1-9Location
Amsterdam, The NetherlandsPublisher DOI
ISSN
0955-3959eISSN
1873-4758Language
engPublication classification
C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalPublisher
ElsevierUsage metrics
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No categories selectedKeywords
AffordancesHepatitis C healthcareQualitativeTelehealthScience & TechnologyLife Sciences & BiomedicineSubstance AbuseFACE-TO-FACEFITPACK DESIGNINJECT DRUGSTELEMEDICINEMORALITYHepatitisLiver DiseaseClinical ResearchDigestive Diseases8.1 Organisation and delivery of services3 Good Health and Well BeingMedical and Health SciencesStudies in Human SocietyPsychology and Cognitive Sciences
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