ReviewDigital health
Addressing health service equity through telehealth: A systematic review of reviews.
Review in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Barriers and Facilitators to Implementing Digital Health Technologies for Remote Management of NCDs in Rural Areas: Mixed Methods Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Pooled it
- Impact of telehealth on hydroxyurea adherence and clinical outcomes in sickle cell disease management: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of managed care & specialty pharmacy · 2026Pooled it
- Evaluation of health equity frameworks in telehealth and digital health: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Telehealth and access to acute primary care in Europe: Balancing opportunity and equity.The European journal of general practice · 2026Article
- Policy Considerations for National Virtual Hospitals: Global Evidence and the Seha Virtual Hospital Model.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Dementia diagnostic deserts: workforce and geographic inequities in the diagnostic pathway for cognitive impairment.Health affairs scholar · 2026Article
- Beyond Access: Telehealth Readiness, Trust, and Early Use Among Jordanian Patients with Chronic Illness.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Building and Sustaining a Statewide Telepsychiatry Network: Lessons Learned from the North Carolina Statewide Telepsychiatry Program (NC-STeP).International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Review
- Nurses' perspectives on remote healthcare delivery and its implications for practice and education: qualitative study.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Digital infrastructure and proxies of ambulatory care access in Russia, 2018-2024: a regional panel study with a national telemedicine signal analysis.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Temporal trends and disparities in cardiovascular disease-related mortality among adults with multiple myeloma in the United States, 1999-2023.BMC cardiovascular disorders · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: To synthesize existing reviews on the impact of telehealth programs on health service equity in non-urban areas, focusing on six dimensions of access: accessibility, availability, acceptability, affordability, adequacy, and awareness. Methods: We included systematic and non-systematic reviews published from 2012 to 2023 on telehealth interventions in rural or remote settings. Content was mapped to the six dimensions, and coverage within each dimension was rated based on predefined criteria. Results: A total of 42 reviews (43% systematic) were identified. Most reviews (90.5%) addressed at least one dimension, yet comprehensive coverage was rare. Acceptability had the highest number of "good" ratings (24%), while awareness was the least explored. Gaps included digital literacy, infrastructure challenges, and cultural barriers-factors critical to equitable telehealth access. Cost-effectiveness analyses were also limited, leaving affordability underexamined. Conclusion: Telehealth shows promise for improving healthcare access in non-urban regions. However, existing reviews often provide incomplete assessments across the six dimensions. This suggests a need for clearer, more robust evaluation frameworks to ensure more comprehensive reporting of equity impacts in telehealth research.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.