Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Aug 3;7(8):e016242.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016242.

Telehealth and patient satisfaction: a systematic review and narrative analysis

Clemens Scott Kruse  1 , Nicole Krowski  1 , Blanca Rodriguez  1 , Lan Tran  1 , Jackeline Vela  1 , Matthew Brooks  1
Affiliations

Telehealth and patient satisfaction: a systematic review and narrative analysis

Clemens Scott Kruse et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Background: The use of telehealth steadily increases as it has become a viable modality to patient care. Early adopters attempt to use telehealth to deliver high-quality care. Patient satisfaction is a key indicator of how well the telemedicine modality met patient expectations.

Objective: The objective of this systematic review and narrative analysis is to explore the association of telehealth and patient satisfaction in regards to effectiveness and efficiency.

Methods: Boolean expressions between keywords created a complex search string. Variations of this string were used in Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature and MEDLINE.

Results: 2193 articles were filtered and assessed for suitability (n=44). Factors relating to effectiveness and efficiency were identified using consensus. The factors listed most often were improved outcomes (20%), preferred modality (10%), ease of use (9%), low cost 8%), improved communication (8%) and decreased travel time (7%), which in total accounted for 61% of occurrences.

Conclusion: This review identified a variety of factors of association between telehealth and patient satisfaction. Knowledge of these factors could help implementers to match interventions as solutions to specific problems.

Keywords: access; home telehealth.; patient quality; patient satisfaction; quality; telecommunications; telehealth; telemedicine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Literature search process with inclusion and exclusion criteria. CINAHL, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization. Telemedicine: opportunities and developments in Member States: report on the second global survey on eHealth: World Health Organization, 2010.
    1. Finkelstein SM, Speedie SM, Potthoff S, et al. Home telehealth improves clinical outcomes at lower cost for home healthcare. Telemed J E Health 2006;12:128–36. 10.1089/tmj.2006.12.128 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rojas SV, Gagnon MP. A systematic review of the key indicators for assessing telehomecare cost-effectiveness. Telemed J E Health 2008;14:896–904. 10.1089/tmj.2008.0009 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cleary PD. A hospitalization from hell: a patient's perspective on quality. Ann Intern Med 2003;138:33–9. 10.7326/0003-4819-138-1-200301070-00009 - DOI - PubMed
    1. LaBarbera PA, Mazursky D. A Longitudinal Assessment of Consumer satisfaction/Dissatisfaction: the Dynamic Aspect of the Cognitive process. Journal of Marketing Research 1983;20:393–404. 10.2307/3151443 - DOI

Publication types