Patient satisfaction with telemedicine in rhinology during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the rapid integration of telemedicine services across several specialties, especially in Otolaryngology where risk of transmission is very high. Studies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that Otolaryngology is generally amenable to telemedicine. However, few studies have assessed patient satisfaction with telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic, and fewer have focused on patient satisfaction with telehealth in Rhinology.

Objectives: To determine if patients believe the benefits of virtual live synchronous telemedicine visits out-weigh the drawbacks when compared to in-person clinical visits.

Methods: Single center retrospective case series and survey study of patients presenting to a tertiary care Rhinology practice between 3/15/2020 and 6/1/2020. All patients had previous in-person encounters with Rhinology (n = 45).

Results: Twenty-nine participants (64.4%) had audio-video visits while 16 (35.6%) had audio visits. 36 (80%) patients stated that their needs were met during their telemedicine visit while 32 (71.1%) patients felt that nothing was missed or not addressed during the virtual visit. The most commonly cited advantage to telemedicine visits was convenience (22.2%) and provider availability (20.0%). While most participants did not disclose a disadvantage to a virtual visit besides the lack of a physical exam (68.9%), the most commonly cited disadvantage to a virtual visit was technological difficulties (17.8%).

Conclusions: Virtual telemedicine visits were shown to effectively meet the needs of established patients and address concerns in a convenient time efficient manner. However, patients indicated that limited technology and a less personalized feel hindered the telemedicine experience in Rhinology.

Keywords: COVID-19; Clinic; Coronavirus; Out-patient; Rhinology; Satisfaction; Sinusitis; Survey; Telehealth; Telemedicine.

Fig. 1

Bar graph of participant responses to survey. Blue bar represents percentage of “yes” answers. Red bars represent percentage of “No” answers. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 2

Responses to free response questions on advantages (A) and disadvantages (B) of telemedicine visits, and changes that participants would like to see made to telemedicine coordination (C).