Cardiology and telehealth in the pandemic

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Historically, healthcare access has been an achilles heel of our healthcare system. Approximately 14.5% of US adults lack readily available access to healthcare and this has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. There is limited data on use of telehealth in cardiology. We share our single-center experience on improving access to care via telehealth at the University of Florida cardiology fellows' clinic. Methods: Demographic and social variables were collected 6 months prior to and 6 months after initiation of telehealth. The effect of telehealth was determined via Chi-square and multiple logistic regression while controlling for demographic covariates. Results: We analyzed 3,316 cardiac clinic appointments over one year period. 1,569 and 1,747 scheduled clinic visits were prior to and after the start of telehealth, respectively. Patients that attended their scheduled follow-up had significantly greater odds of being in the post-telemedicine group while controlling for marital status and insurance type (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.07-1.62). Patients who attended had higher odds of having city contract insurance (OR 3.51, 95% CI 1.79-6.87) compared to private insurance. City contract insurance is an indigenous care plan. There are also higher odds of being previously married (OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.05-1.70) or married/dating (OR 1.39, 95% CI 1.05-1.82) compared to being single for patients who attended their scheduled visits. Telehealth did not lead to increase in use of Mychart, the electronic patient portal (P-value 0.55). Conclusions: Telehealth improved patients' access to care in a cardiology fellows' clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth as a resource adjunct to traditional care in cardiology fellows' clinic should be further explore.