Evaluation of Patient Experience During Virtual and In-Person Urgent Care Visits: Time and Cost Analysis

Abstract

Urgent care (UC) is one of the fastest growing venues of health care delivery for nonemergent conditions. This study compared the patient experience during virtual and in-person urgent care visits. We conducted a cross-sectional study of patients with the same diagnosis during Virtual Urgent Care (VUC) and in-person UC visits with the same diagnosis with regard to time and cost over a period of one year. We recorded and analyzed 16 685 urgent care visits: In-person UC (n = 14 734), VUC (n = 1262). Significant differences were found in the average total time for a visit in an in-person UC (70.89 minutes), and VUC (9.38 minutes). The average total cost of VUC ($49) and in-person UC ($142.657) differed significantly. Significant difference was found between UC turnaround time and VC turnaround time (Dependent variable (DV): 53.77, P < .01). We found significant differences in cost and time between in favor of virtual visits. Our findings suggest additional policy reform to expand the use of virtual care among target populations to improve access, reduce costs, meet the needs of patients, and reduce emergency department visits.

Designs, facilitators, barriers, and lessons learned during the implementation of emergency department led virtual urgent care programs in Ontario, Canada

“…Moreover, the current work addresses an important gap in the published literature related to VUC implementation strategies and lessons learned. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a paucity of data related to virtual urgent and emergent care services in the published literature (7,8). As a result of innovations stemming from the pandemic, additional VUC services have been described for multiple American, Canadian, and Australian programs (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14).…”

“…Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a paucity of data related to virtual urgent and emergent care services in the published literature ( 7 , 8 ). As a result of innovations stemming from the pandemic, additional VUC services have been described for multiple American, Canadian, and Australian programs ( 9 – 14 ).…”

Patient Experience from an eHealth Perspective: A Scoping Review of Approaches and Recent Trends

“…In the reviewed articles, precise definitions or descriptions for the concept of PX are not presented. Instead, PX is often used as a synonym for other related concepts, such as satisfaction [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], patient engagement [29][30][31], and patient perceptions [21,22,32]. Satisfaction studies report the use of patient satisfaction questionnaires resulting in patient satisfaction scores [18,21,22,25] whereas "patient engagement" refers to the amount of engagement with eHealth solutions [30] or online patient engagement practices [31].…”

“…(incl. qualitative and/or quantitative questions) [19,20,[22][23][24][25]28,29,34,40,43,46,[52][53][54][56][57][58]60] Interview [30,32,35,37,42,45,59] Focus group [36,41] Service analysis [31,51] Design methods [44] Reviews [26,39,49] Implementation study [18,21,50,61] Cross-sectional study [27,33] eHealth pilot or trial [38,43,47,48,55] The most frequently used method (i.e., surveys) was applied in 18 papers (see Figure 2). As patient satisfaction was one of the most mentioned aspects affecting PX, patient satisfaction surveys were the most broadly applied.…”

“…Similarly, the five papers that reported different pilots or trials [38,43,47,48,55] also included other methods, such as surveys or usability studies, to further evaluate the success of the trial. More rarely, used methods included and cross-sectional studies [27,33]. One research paper applied different design methods, such as journey maps and stakeholder maps [44].…”