
Occupational Therapy Student Telehealth Experiences
Author: Jake Benich, Hannah Stoll, Grace Fulton
Who We Are?
We are new occupational therapy (OT) graduates who recently completed their doctoral capstone projects involving telehealth. Our projects involved working on telehealth training for therapists, the creation of tools to help families and caregivers be successful with telehealth and the administration of telehealth for use with early intervention. The focus on telehealth for all of these projects came on suddenly in the wake of Covid-19. With telehealth as an emerging area of practice, many therapists found themselves underprepared for the quick transition to remote service delivery. We were tasked to step in to meet the organizational needs regarding the sudden implementation of telehealth and to create sustainable plans for its long-term use. Please see below for brief descriptions of our projects, results, and some tips we learned along the way.
How Do Our OT Experiences Look Like?
With the introduction of telehealth into the therapeutic world, my particular project surrounded ensuring caregivers had sufficient therapeutic materials at home to meet the needs of their children. I found that caregivers scored higher on their satisfaction with telehealth as well as a higher indication of future usage after receiving a therapeutic care package.



Jake Benich, OTD
I developed a parent coaching program for children ages 0-3 to help families meet their child’s developmental goals. My program was planned to be implemented in family homes. However, due to poor weather and quarantine protocols some sessions were switched to telehealth. Because the switch was usually last minute a lot of planning did not go into sessions and all the families I worked with used their mobile phone and the Zoom app. A huge benefit of the program focusing on parent coaching is that parents knew they were expected to be actively involved throughout the session and it provided a great opportunity to observe the family in home routines and focus on conversation and reflection.



Hannah Stoll, OTD
I created a series of 7 webinars designed to help therapists feel more confident when administering and planning telehealth sessions. One of the webinars was dedicated specifically to technology and how to make it work to your advantage in a session. Many times, therapists can see technology as a barrier, but it doesn’t have to be. Telehealth offers so many unique opportunities that in-person therapy doesn’t. I love that with the parent coaching model, parents can stay involved and learn how to interact in a therapeutic way with their child.



Grace Fulton, OTD