Background and objectives: Ambulatory (outpatient) health care organizations continue to respond to the COVID-19 global pandemic using an array of initiatives to provide a continuity of care and related patient outcomes. Telehealth has quickly become an advantageous tool in assisting outpatient providers in this challenge, which has also come with an adaptation of U.S. government policy, procedures, and, as a result, organizational protocols surrounding the delivery of telehealth care. Materials and methods: This systematic review identified three primary facilitators to the implementation and establishment of telehealth services for the outpatient segment of the United States health care industry: patient engagement, operational workflow and organizational readiness, and regulatory changes surrounding reimbursement parity for telehealth care. Results: Researchers identified three barriers impacting the implementation and use of telehealth resources: patient telehealth limitations, lack of clinical care telehealth guidelines, and training, technology, and financial considerations. Conclusions: This systematic review’s identified facilitators and barriers for telehealth implementation initiatives in the United States can assist future outpatient providers as the global pandemic and associated public health initiatives such as physical distancing continue.

The rapid shift from classroom course delivery to online education modalities during the COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on academia. Student loss of face-to-face interaction, the lost social benefits of the educational milieu, and restricted instructor ability to control both the learning environment and assessment process have been significant. The purpose of this paper is to discover if due to the unplanned shift to online course delivery, educators and researchers experienced impacts to academic integrity during the peak of the online shift. A systemic review utilizing the PRISMA methodology of peer reviewed literature published during the period of March 2020 till September 2021 demonstrated that violation types continued to fall within the existing academic integrity constructs of inappropriate information sharing, cheating on exams and assignments, incidents of plagiarism, and falsifying or fabricating information. The results showed that pre-COVID concerns with academic integrity were amplified with previous concerns moving to the forefront. In addition, the rapid shift opened doors for greater opportunity for violations and increased instructor concern especially within the hard sciences and courses with lab-based components. Reinforcing the importance of providing formal academic integrity student and faculty training can be a beneficial intervention to ensure students understand the ethical implications of student behavior and performance during the assessment process. Given the emerging trend pre-COVID that skyrocketed during the pandemic, ensuring academic integrity should remain a key priority for learning institutions.

Ambulatory health care provider organizations participating in Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) organizations assume costs beyond typical practice operations that are directly associated with value-based care initiatives. Identifying these variables that influence such costs are essential to an organization’s financial viability. To enable the U.S. healthcare system to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic CMS issued blanket waivers that permit enhanced flexibility, extension, and other emergency declaration changes to ACO reporting requirements through the unforeseen future. This relaxation and even pausing of reporting requirements encouraged the researchers to conduct a systematic review and identify variables that have influenced costs incurred by ambulatory care organizations participating in ACOs prior to the emergency declaration. The research findings identified ACO-ambulatory care variables (enhanced patient care management, health information technology improvements, and organizational ownership/reimbursement models) that helped to reduce costs to the ambulatory care organization. Additional variables (social determinants of health/environmental conditions, lack of integration/standardization, and misalignment of financial incentives) were also identified in the literature as having influenced costs for ambulatory care organizations while participating in an ACO initiative with CMS. Findings can assist ambulatory care organizations to focus on new and optimized strategies as they begin to prepare for the post-pandemic resumption of ACO quality reporting requirements once the emergency declaration is eventually lifted.