Case Management and Telehealth: A Scoping Review

Background:Case management (CM) is an intervention adapted to the needs of patients with chronic conditions or complex needs. Factors associated with effectiveness of CM, such as high intervention intensity, can represent challenges to its implementation. Telehealth has the potential to help overcome these challenges, but little work has been done to synthesize available evidence on telehealth CM. The purpose of this scoping review was thus to fill this gap and document which telehealth modalities have been used, summarize perspectives of key users, and discuss evidence on effectiveness of telehealth-delivered CM.Methods:A search in MEDLINE, Scopus, and CINAHL for articles published between January 2005 and January 2021 was done. Studies in which telehealth was used for patient-case manager interaction and conducted in a population with complex health needs and/or chronic conditions were included. Articles selected for full-text review were independently screened by two reviewers. Data extraction was conducted once and validated by a second reviewer.Results:Of 3,108 articles, 22 were retained for data extraction. A narrative synthesis was conducted. Most studies evaluated CM interventions delivered over telephone, yet, literature suggests that face-to-face contact is essential to CM success. Results also indicate that telehealth CM is acceptable and effective, associated with better utilization of health services and favorable clinical outcomes.Conclusions:Lack of research evaluating telehealth CM delivered using modalities other than telephone. Further research should evaluate CM interventions that integrate platforms enabling visual information exchange.