Adverse Events Involving Telehealth in the Veterans Health Administration

The most frequent telehealth-related events were delays in care, medication errors, and equipment issues, and most events were not unique to this modality. Further research is needed to characterize safety events unique to telehealth to better define parameters for patient safety activities. Recommendations to reduce errors include ongoing provider training, human factors analysis of telehealth processes, simplifying processes and procedures for providers and patients to get help for technical or knowledge deficits in real time, and examining the business rules for telehealth care.