![]() We designed a qualitative study including video and phone interviews with PCPs to learn how physicians were impacted by the rapid expanded use of telehealth in response to the emergence of COVID-19. At one point, 98% of the 1,800 physicians across the medical center were conducting about 2,500 telehealth visits per day. The percentage of video and telephone visits increased from 1.2% to 91.8% between the first and last weeks of March. In March 2020, the medical center responded to the emergence of COVID-19 by converting in-person, non-emergent primary care visits to telehealth across the service area. Although patients expressed a willingness to engage in telehealth, the workgroup discovered that patients had many questions around the technical requirements and preparations to have a video visit and how such visits would be covered by their insurance. A telehealth workgroup was formed to identify barriers to implementation and was focused on physician telehealth training and securing buy-in from clinicians and leadership at the institution. Thus, the objective of our study was to explore the perspectives of primary care physicians (PCPs) who used telehealth during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic to better understand how this remote care option benefited them and their patients.Īt the end of 2019, the Division of General Internal Medicine and the Department of Family and Community Medicine at a Midwestern academic medical center set the goal of transitioning at least 30% of routine, in-person primary care services to telehealth (i.e., telephone and video) over the next 3–5 years. Furthermore, as healthcare practices continue to invest in building up their telehealth infrastructure, improved understanding of physicians’ perceptions about the benefits of this care modality can help identify opportunities to sustain its use and to better address patients’ needs in the future. Answering these questions can help illuminate the aspects of telehealth that contribute to high-quality, safe, and affordable patient care-priorities that continue to be the focus of policymakers and healthcare institutions. Further, as the use of telehealth proliferated, physician concerns about the adequacy of remote physical examinations, which could result in unnecessary referrals and additional testing, raise questions about how physicians experienced telehealth in the context of delivering fewer in-person visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how these experiences may have impacted patients. Īs we have begun to understand the short- and long-term implications of this dramatic shift towards telehealth, as well as the barriers and facilitators to its use during the COVID-19 pandemic, we still do not have a clear understanding of how telehealth, as a type of care delivery model, has benefited physicians and patients, especially beyond increased convenience, and improved satisfaction. Given such benefits, researchers and practitioners continue to promote the ongoing use of video visits as a remote care option. In practice, physicians can use telehealth, and video visits specifically, to remotely monitor and manage patients’ acute and chronic medical needs and triage patients who may potentially need more intensive treatment. Furthermore, one study demonstrated that patient satisfaction scores were higher for patients who had a video visit versus an in-person visit and who received care during the COVID-19 pandemic versus before the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous research has demonstrated that video visits offer certain benefits to patients including staying connected to their physicians, avoiding crowded waiting rooms, and saving time by not having to travel long distances for in-person visits. ![]() Synchronous video calls between physicians and patients (i.e., video visits) are a specific type of telehealth that continues to proliferate as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. ![]() Experts expect remote care options to remain a central component of healthcare delivery beyond the COVID-19 pandemic because of its potential to effectively address a wide range of patient needs for example, chronic disease management, mental health follow-ups, and counseling services. Telehealth refers to a variety of synchronous (telephone or video) and asynchronous (patient portals or online medical records) activities that allow physicians to provide patient care at a distance. rapidly implemented telehealth to expand remote care options in response to the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In spring of 2020, healthcare practices across the U.S.
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