| Course | NU 715 Telehealth to Expand Health Care Access and Delivery |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Digital access equity audit |
| Length | About 870 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | MSN |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NU 715 Unit 6
Who the Rural Heart Failure Telehealth Program Would Leave Out: A Digital Access Audit of Last Year's 176 Discharges
Student Name
Department of Nursing, Herzing University
NU 715: Telehealth to Expand Health Care Access and Delivery
Instructor Name
February 25, 2026
Who the Rural Heart Failure Telehealth Program Would Leave Out: A Digital Access Audit of Last Year's 176 Discharges
What Remote Care Silently Demands
A video visit or a month of home monitoring asks more of a patient than it appears. It requires a device with a working camera and microphone, or a set of monitoring devices, and the ability to charge and set them up. It requires a connection, broadband or cellular data, strong enough to last a visit. It requires an account and password, and often an app. It requires a room where a conversation cannot be overheard. It requires hearing and vision good enough to follow a clinician on a small screen, and enough comfort with technology to troubleshoot when something fails. And it assumes the platform works in the patient's language. For a program serving older adults with heart failure in rural Kansas, each of these is a filter. This audit sets the composite health system's own patients against these demands before the program launches.
The Patients and the Data
The population is the 176 adults discharged with heart failure from the system's hospital last year. Sources: the electronic record, for age, living situation, preferred language, and documented hearing or vision impairment; a survey completed at discharge by 60 consecutive patients in the last quarter, asking about devices, internet, and comfort with video; and the Federal Communications Commission's broadband availability map, checked against patients' home addresses.
What the Audit Found
The table sets each demand against the proportion of patients unlikely to meet it.
| Demand | Evidence from this population | Proportion likely unable |
|---|---|---|
| A smartphone, tablet, or computer with a camera | Discharge survey: 13 of 60 had none | About 22% |
| Broadband or reliable cellular data at home | Broadband map: 41 of 176 addresses lack service at common minimum speeds; several more have poor cellular signal | About 23% to 30% |
| Comfort using video without help | Survey: 22 of 60 said they could not start a video call without help | About 37% |
| Hearing adequate for a video call | Record: documented hearing impairment in 47 of 176 | About 27%, though many could manage with captions or a helper |
| Someone at home to help | Record: 58 of 176 live alone | About 33% have no one at home |
| A platform in the patient's language | Record: 14 of 176 prefer Spanish; the video platform's interface is English-only | About 8% |
Who Is Left Out
The barriers cluster in the same people. Among patients aged 80 and older, who make up 38% of the population, the survey found most could not start a video call alone, and many live alone. This matches national data: an analysis of older adults in the United States estimated that about 38% were not ready for video visits, with much higher proportions among the oldest (Lam et al., 2020). Patients who prefer Spanish face a platform in English and an added step to bring in an interpreter; patients with limited English proficiency have been found to use video visits less than others (Rodriguez et al., 2021). And patients on the eastern edge of the service area, where broadband is thinnest, are also those who live farthest from the hospital, the very patients the program was meant to help.
Taken together, a home-video-only design would likely reach fewer than half of the patients at highest risk, and its benefits would flow mainly to younger, connected patients who already have better access to care.
Limits of the Audit
Several constraints shape how these numbers should be read. The discharge survey covered 60 patients from one quarter, not all 176, and patients who were too unwell or confused to complete it are missing from it; they are likely to face more barriers, not fewer, so the survey probably understates the problem. The broadband map reports whether service is available at an address, not whether a household can afford it or has subscribed, so it also understates the gap. Hearing impairment is recorded inconsistently in the chart. And the audit did not ask about privacy at home, which matters for patients living in crowded households or with family members they may not want present during a visit about their health. These limits point in the same direction: the true share of patients unable to use home video is probably larger than the table shows. The audit will be repeated after six months using the program's own enrollment data, which will measure the gap directly rather than estimate it.
Design Changes That Follow
Each barrier has a design response, and most are already consistent with the program's clinical and payment planning. First, offer the seven-day visit at the four outlying clinics as the default, with a nurse present, so that patients need no device or broadband. Second, lend a cellular-enabled tablet, preconfigured to open the visit with one tap, and cellular-enabled monitoring devices that do not need home internet. Third, keep telephone visits available as a full option, not a failure mode. Fourth, assign a digital navigator, a trained staff member who calls before the first visit to test the setup and walks the patient or a family member through it. Fifth, use captioning on the video platform and a phone-based interpreter line that can be added to any visit; ask the vendor for a Spanish interface and choose a different platform at renewal if it is not available. Sixth, for patients who live alone, arrange a home health nursing visit to coincide with the first video visit.
How Equity Will Be Monitored
Enrollment, completed seven-day visits, and 30-day readmissions will be reported by age group, living situation, preferred language, and broadband status every quarter. If any group enrolls or completes visits at a markedly lower rate, the program leads will review why and adjust. High satisfaction among the patients who do use telehealth (Kruse et al., 2017) says nothing about those who never enroll, which is why enrollment itself is measured by group. The program will count its success not only by average results but by whether its oldest, most isolated, and least connected patients benefit.
References
Kruse, C. S., Krowski, N., Rodriguez, B., Tran, L., Vela, J., & Brooks, M. (2017). Telehealth and patient satisfaction: A systematic review and narrative analysis. BMJ Open, 7(8), Article e016242. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016242
Lam, K., Lu, A. D., Shi, Y., & Covinsky, K. E. (2020). Assessing telemedicine unreadiness among older adults in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Internal Medicine, 180(10), 1389-1391. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.2671
Rodriguez, J. A., Saadi, A., Schwamm, L. H., Bates, D. W., & Samal, L. (2021). Disparities in telehealth use among California patients with limited English proficiency. Health Affairs, 40(3), 487-495. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00823
The Herzing NU 715 Unit 6 instructions
Unit 6 asks you to audit digital access among the population a telehealth service would serve. Expect to identify what remote care requires of patients, gather data on your population, estimate how many cannot meet each requirement, identify who is most affected, acknowledge limits and propose design changes. Many versions ask how equity will be monitored after launch. Check whether your section expects real or composite data. FCC broadband maps and census tract data can fill gaps in what your own records show. Audio-only care is a fair mitigation for some patients but may be a lesser service for others, so discuss that tradeoff. Present findings as proportions with denominators so the grader can see how large each barrier is.
How the NU 715 Unit 6 example is put together
The audit begins by listing what a video visit or home monitoring actually requires, which many program plans assume rather than state. The data section names its sources and their limits. The findings table pairs each demand with the share of patients unlikely to meet it. The section on who is left out shows barriers cluster in the same people, especially the oldest patients and those living alone. Limits are specific, such as a survey covering one quarter and possible response bias. Design changes match each barrier: loaned devices for those without one, cellular data for poor broadband, caregiver involvement for hearing and vision limits and telephone for those who prefer it. Monitoring reports outcomes by subgroup, so exclusion becomes visible after launch.
Reading the NU 715 Unit 6 rubric
Herzing grades a digital equity audit on the identification of access requirements, data sources and methods, findings, analysis of affected groups, limitations, recommendations and writing. Requirements points reward a complete list of what remote care demands. Findings earn credit with proportions and denominators. The analysis of affected groups is often weighted heavily and looks for overlapping barriers rather than separate counts. Limitation points go to honest statements about data. Recommendations are scored on whether each design change addresses a specific barrier. A monitoring plan that reports results by subgroup usually earns credit here as well. Tables should be easy to read, and the APA 7 list should include Rodriguez and colleagues on digital inclusion and Kruse on rural barriers.
NU 715 Unit 6 help: mistakes that cost points
The common shortfall in a Unit 6 audit is assuming most patients have smartphones and broadband without checking. Another frequent problem is counting barriers separately without noticing they cluster in the same patients. Students often propose a single fix, such as patient education, for barriers that need devices or connectivity. Audio-only care is either dismissed or offered as a complete solution without discussion. Limits of survey data are ignored. Equity monitoring after launch is often missing. Finally, report findings by subgroup, especially age and living situation, because averages hide the patients most likely to be left out and graders look for that breakdown.
Get a NU 715 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 6 instructions and the rubric from your NU 715 classroom, plus the service and the population your audit has to cover. We write a custom example with the requirements listed first, local evidence matched to each, exclusion estimated and mitigations priced against named gaps, returned in 24 to 48 hours. The first custom sample is free.
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NU 715 Unit 6 questions, answered
Where do I find data about my own population?
Public sources carry most of it: census and connectivity figures for the counties your service covers, plus whatever your organization already knows about the panel's age, preferred language and how many patients have no email on file. Say where each figure came from and how closely it matches your patients, since county data describes a county rather than the people who walk through your door.
Is audio-only a fair mitigation or a lesser service?
Both, and saying so is the honest position. A telephone pathway reaches patients that video never will, and it removes the visual information the earlier units were built around. Offer it, state what it cannot support clinically, keep the conversion criteria that send those patients to be seen, and check what your payers currently do with audio-only claims before counting on the revenue.
How do I estimate exclusion without survey data?
Reason from what you have and show the working. Combining connectivity figures for the service area with the panel's age profile and the share of patients lacking an email address produces a defensible range, provided you call it a range and name what would sharpen it. A rough estimate with visible reasoning is worth far more than an unsupported claim about most patients.
Where can I find a free NU 715 Unit 6 sample paper?
The whole NU 715 Unit 6 digital access audit is on this page free, with the demands table, affected groups and design changes. A custom audit can examine the population your own telehealth service would serve.
How do I assess digital access before starting a telehealth program?
List what remote care requires, such as a device, broadband, hearing, vision and privacy, then estimate the share of your patients who lack each. This sample used record data and a discharge survey to find that barriers clustered among patients 80 and older.