Avoiding pitfalls in virtual care: paving the road for more ethical and equitable policies and practices in rehabilitation

Telerehabilitation use, or virtual rehabilitation, has grown exponentially in order to continue to provide essential rehabilitation services to the population during the Covid-19 pandemic in response to physical distancing requirements. However, clinicians who provide virtual rehabilitation services have had inconsistent and incomplete guidance for this new way of offering services, which can affect the quality of care for the most vulnerable among our society. Managers and decision-makers are also faced with difficult choices when choosing to put in place virtual rehabilitation. As well, people with disability need to be better equipped to this new way of receiving rehabilitation services. As a team of researchers with multiple partners in the community and health care sectors, we aim to put in place a community of practice that will learn from research and current virtual rehabilitation practices, and work together to share, support and improve the use of virutal rehabilitation in Canada. We will conduct a review of the virtual rehabilitation literature, analyze current virutal rehabilitation practices, and examine clinicians, managers, decision makers, and people with disability's experiences with virtual rehabilitation to better understand what works, what does not, and why. We will hold consensus meetings to create and contribute to guiding principles and tools for the continued use of virtual rehabilitation activities to ultimately improve the health and wellbeing of all people with disability.