Strategies and technologies used by a virtual health service to promote collaboration, connection and community

The Western New South Wales Specialist Intellectual Disability Health Team (SIDHT) is a virtual service that provides multidisciplinary assessment of people with intellectual disability (ID) and complex comorbid health needs and consultation to health professionals.

Effective communication is essential to assessment and care of people with ID. It is key to not only attaining information but also for helping people to feel involved, comfortable, and heard. People with ID will often experience communication difficulties in consultations and this impacts on their healthcare access. Using virtual modalities to provide healthcare is assumed to create further barriers to effective communication between health workers and people with ID and there is skepticism about its use in this population group. However, in the experience of the SIDHT, when health workers prepare for communication success, virtual care can be an effective and safe way to provide timely and person-centered care to people with ID.

This presentation outlines how health services and health workers can prepare for communication success and will include (1) key principles for communicating with people with ID over video conference, (2) practical demonstrations of effective communication skills and, (3) reflections from SIDHT clinician's experiences communication with people with ID using virtual modalities.



Key takeaway for allied health:

Virtual Care can be an effective and safe way to provide timely and person and family centered care to people with ID

Assessment of communication needs will help clinicians to prepare for communication success when using virtual modalities

Skills that are used to promote in-person communication with people with ID can be transferred to virtual communication.