The Use of Telemedicine Across Surgical Specialties in an Academic Medical Center

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Telemedicine has played an increasingly important role in surgical care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study was to quantify the number of telemedicine visits compared to in-person ones across surgical specialties. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of the total number of in-person and telemedicine visits for all surgical specialties in a large urban Children’s Hospital between February and December 2020. Specialties reviewed were cardiovascular and thoracic, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, otolaryngology, urology, pediatric, plastic, and transplant. The percent of total visits by telemedicine was analyzed over time for each specialty. Results: Of 80,874 surgical clinical visits identified, 4,764 encounters (5.89%) were telemedicine. The specialties with the highest total percentages of telemedicine visits were neurosurgery (32%) and urology (15%). Plastic surgery, orthopedics, and ophthalmology reported the lowest percentage of telemedicine visits at 4% each. Telemedicine usage in most specialties did not change by more than 5% between June and December. Conclusion: Our institutional trends reveal neurosurgery and urology had the highest percentages of telemedicine appointments while plastic surgery, orthopedics, and ophthalmology had the lowest. While nearly all specialties displayed a decrease in telemedicine use from April to December 2020, neurosurgery had the significantly lowest percent decrease. Telemedicine rates for all specialties relatively plateaued from June to December, suggesting that past trends may be indicative of future patterns in telemedicine use. Understanding trends in telemedicine volume instigated by and following the pandemic may better prepare institutions to navigate the accelerated adoption of telemedicine within surgical fields.