Table 1 Description of case study organizations
Case | Description | Communities Served |
|---|---|---|
Hospital-based Mental Health Services | An acute care hospital located in an urban centre in Southern Ontario, providing outpatient mental health services by phone and video visits. The organization of which the mental health clinic was a part had made large investments in virtual care in the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet the clinic had not implemented virtual visits on such a large scale in advance of the pandemic. The clinic implemented virtual care rapidly with the onset of the pandemic. | Adults requiring mental health services |
Community Support Services | Community support services (e.g., meal delivery, caregiver respite, social stimulation activities, etc) offered to multiple townships in rural Ontario. Staff implemented a standardized surveillance instrument conducted over the phone to identify and triage at-risk clients and connect them to the appropriate health or social care service. They implemented a teleconferencing service for patients due to an initial lack of internet accessibility in the office, then introduced videoconferencing shortly afterwards. The volume of patients using virtual care decreased during summer months of 2020. | Rural communities and older adults |
Home Care | A home care agency offering a wide variety of home healthcare services in urban centres across Southern Ontario (e.g., physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology, nursing, etc). Phone and video visits were authorized for clinical needs related to wellness and health checks, monitoring of conditions/symptoms, remote clinical consultation or intervention related to client care plan goals and support for assessment and reassessment of treatment plans. A virtual care strategy was implemented across all regions within the first 2–3 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic (March–April 2020). There was an initial dip in the total volume of patients, followed by a return to normal volumes when services were virtualized. | Older adults, individuals with low income, and people experiencing homelessness |
Primary Care | Primary care services offered through an Aboriginal Health Access Centre located in Northern Ontario. Services were virtualized primarily through telephone visits and were provided to neighbouring First Nations communities. Providers quickly transitioned to conducting virtual visits from their home. After some feedback about their approach, providers then switched to conducting virtual visits from the community clinics located in First Nations communities. They resumed in-person visits in June 2020 and majority of visits switched back to in-person visits. | First Nations communities** ** Indigenous Peoples in Canada are comprised of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. This case study included members of some First Nations communities in Northern Ontario. |