Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: Initial Lessons Learned.
Laryngoscope
; 130(11): 2568-2573, 2020 11.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-690916
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS:
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented global changes in the delivery of healthcare over a short period of time. With the implementation of shelter-in-place orders, otolaryngology clinic visits at our institution were transitioned to telemedicine. This change enabled the rapid characterization of the patients who accepted and declined telemedicine. STUDYDESIGN:
Cross-sectional analysis.METHODS:
A review was conducted of 525 otolaryngology patients at a tertiary-care referral center with scheduled visits requiring rescheduling to a future date or a telemedicine visit. Visit, demographic information, and reason for deferring telemedicine were collected for analysis.RESULTS:
Seventy-two percent of patients declined a telemedicine visit, with the most common reason being the lack of a physical exam (97%). There was an even distribution of demographics between those who accepted and declined visits. There was an association between declining telemedicine with older age (P = .0004) and otology visits (P = .0003), whereas facial plastics patients were more likely to accept (P < .0001). Patients scheduled earlier during the pandemic were more likely to accept a visit with a median of 28 days from onset of shelter-in-place orders versus 35 for those who declined (P < .0001).CONCLUSIONS:
We describe our initial experience with a transition to telemedicine, where the majority of patients would decline a virtual visit due to the lack of a physical exam. Although the future remains uncertain, telemedicine will continue to play a vital role in healthcare delivery. We believe that understanding our patient base gives critical insights that will help guide and improve virtual care to meet patients' needs. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 4 Laryngoscope, 1302568-2573, 2020.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Otolaryngology
/
Practice Patterns, Physicians'
/
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
/
Telemedicine
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
English
Journal:
Laryngoscope
Journal subject:
Otolaryngology
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Lary.29030
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