A Hybrid Clinical Trial Delivery Model in the COVID-19 Era

摘要

Apart from the devastating fatal, economic, and societal consequences, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented challenges to health care access for children with developmental disabilities. At the same time, the pandemic has also led to major health care innovations that deserve further reflection and ongoing research. In fact, some of these innovations may find their way into routine clinical practice even beyond the pandemic. Every day citizens have innovated to help solve urgent health care needs, for example, creating aerosol boxes to prevent infectious spread among clinicians, 3D-printed ear guards to reduce pain from prolonged mask wearing, or 3D-printed ventilator valves to reduce their shortage.2 In the face of shelter-in-place and social distancing guidelines, clinicians and caregivers of children with disabilities have also shown extraordinary resilience in finding alternative ways to continue offering therapeutic services using telehealth/videoconferencing platforms as well as face-to-face (F2F) visits with appropriate precautions. Prior to the pandemic, F2F interaction (and not telehealth) was the mainstay of pediatric clinical practice. However, social restrictions during the pandemic, advances in videoconferencing technologies, transition to online schooling, and openness to remote videoconferencing within the clinical community as well as amongst children and families have clearly propelled the use of telehealth for pediatric rehabilitation.