Healthy Kids Club: telehealth evaluation empowering children and families to tackle childhood obesity

Telehealth allowed the HKC multidisciplinary team to provide treatment of obesity despite temporary ceasing of face-to-face support, aligning strongly with evidence-based guidelines. 
The delivery of healthcare via telecommunication provides effective and flexible services, reducing barriers associated with travel, access, time and costs. 
Previous childhood obesity treatments delivered via telehealth have shown promising results regarding patient outcomes and ratings of satisfaction, highly dependent on patient characteristics. 
Research suggests in order to optimise health outcomes relating to childhood obesity, family-centred care must be delivered at a medium to high intensity (26-75 hours of contact), with sufficient duration (6-months for initial weight loss phase) and promote a strong family component. 
Telehealth support facilitated the formulation of goals with the multidisciplinary team, aiming to encourage patients to implement manageable improvements in health behaviours and increase motivation. Goal setting around healthy behaviours is widely utilised to inspire motivation within obesity management. 
Overall, the telehealth Model of Care is highlighted as a cost-effective approach to mitigate the rates of childhood obesity. Successful research findings have informed an improvement update to the standard Model of Care, including the greater utilisation of telehealth to minimise service access barriers, maintain patient engagement and ultimately improve patient health outcomes.