The role of telephone clinics in ENT

Abstract

Objective: This quality improvement project assessed the outcomes of telephone consultations for ENT patients in order to identify areas where telephone consultations may be useful in the long term.

Method: New ENT patient appointments in May 2019 and May 2020 were reviewed. Total outcomes as well as subspecialty-specific and presentation-specific outcomes were compared for telephone versus face-to-face consultations.

Results: There were 638 consultations in total (465 in 2019 and 173 in 2020). Following telephone consultations, more patients were followed up and fewer patients were listed for surgery or discharged. Overall outcomes for subspecialties followed the general trend, albeit with a few variations.

Conclusion: Lack of clinical examination in telephone consultations likely affects confidence in making a diagnosis and therefore discharging or listing patients for surgery. Nevertheless, looking at specialty-specific and presentation-specific data, there may be a role for telephone consultations in selected patients.

Keywords: Otolaryngology; Quality Improvement; Remote Consultation.