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Evidence Summary:

A 2000 systematic review assessed 32 studies[PS1]  with more than 2,300 patients from 1966 to 1998 that measured patient satisfaction after video telehealth consultations with healthcare providers.¹ The review included 1 RCT (N=104), 1 case control study (N=50), and 30 cross sectional studies with participant inclusion via random selection, referrals, convenience samples, volunteers, or unspecified techniques). Included studies ranged over varying healthcare provider settings from family medicine to a range of differing specialties. Studies were excluded if they used telecommunication technology for educational or administrative purposes not involving provision of care to patients. The primary outcome was overall participant satisfaction with telemedicine. There was no standardized outcome measure used; 26 studies used survey instruments, while 1 used qualitative analysis and 5 did not specify. Methodological heterogeneity therefore precluded formal statistical analysis and there were no numbers to report in this study. The authors conducted qualitative analysis of the data and findings with no standardized scoring method. The qualitative analysis revealed that video telemedicine was generally well-accepted in all studies; specific advantages were access to specialist care, less travel, and reduced wait times; disadvantages were video communication. Authors critically appraised each study using a checklist and found several conces related to validity and generalizability of individual studies. This study is limited by the subjective nature of qualitative analysis and unclear methodology of the analysis; the largest study in this review (N=585) was conducted in a prison setting, limiting generalizability of results to the general patient population.

Ryan Gorji MD
Dr Ryan Gorji
Ryan Gorji Chicago

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