Assessment of Structured Tele-Critical Care Training and Its Impact on Clinician's Perceptions of Delivery of Care: A Survey-Based Pilot Study.

OBJECTIVES: Current research does not address the existence and impact of structured tele-critical care (TCC) training on the delivery of care in the ICU. This pilot study aimed to evaluate the association between on boarding elements focused on training and clinicians perceptions of delivery of care. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Critical Care professionals at four U.S. hospitals, professional meetings and Society of Critical Care Medicine's International Membership base. Participants were active clinicians who practice in the TCC setting. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: A total of 432 participants responded to the survey, 227 met the eligibility criteria (52.5%) and were included in the analysis. Respondents were a multi-professional group of TCC clinicians aged between 35-55 years of age (56.4%). Seventy-four percent of respondents reported having orientation before providing TCC, 46% reported having formal mentorship, and 66% reported formal training on their institutional platform. Provision of orientation before participating in a TCC program was associated with higher ratings of feeling prepared (odds ratio [OR], 3.52; p < 0.001) and feeling accepted as part of the ICU team (OR, 2.21; p = 0.008). Mentorship was associated with feeling more prepared (OR, 8.2; p < 0.001) and higher comfort in delivering care (OR, 2.78; p = 0.016). Platform training was associated with feeling more prepared (OR, 4.66; p < 0.001), comfortable in delivering care (OR, 3.6; p = 0.002), feeling accepted as part of the team (OR, 3.18; p < 0.001), and more likely to participate in quality improvement (OR, 2.51; p = 0.001). A site visit also made a positive impact in feeling prepared (OR, 2.86; p < 0.001), comfortable (OR, 4.95; p = 0.002), feeling like recommendations were accepted (OR, 3.73; p < 0.001), more likely to recommend TCC (OR, 3.18; p = 0.001), and participating in quality improvement (OR, 3.24; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: In this pilot study, structured training utilizing orientation, mentorship, and platform training as surrogates, along with a site visit before beginning delivery of care in a TCC setting, were associated with more positive perceptions in the delivery of care domains assessed. We highlight potentially important factors that warrant further evaluation and assessment of the need for standardization across TCC programs.