Family caregivers are often involved in the day-to-day activities of their older relatives, such as communicating with doctors, helping them navigate the health care system and making decisions that affect their care.
But when the pandemic hit, forcing health care systems to switch to telehealth visits, many of the caregivers that would have been involved in in-person care were left out of the process, according to a new observational study published in the Annals of Family Medicine.
"Our telehealth policies and practices need to consider how to involve caregivers," said lead author Minakshi Raj, who conducted the study while a doctoral student in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
