Medical profile suitable to practice through Telemedicine with efficacy and safety: Survey (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND To perform telemedicine correctly, thus improving the healthcare of our patients and saving resources, we need to differentiate between three pillars: A healthcare professional with a suitable profile to practice Telemedicine, a patient with a profile suitable for being attended to through Telemedicine, and a clinical case at an optimal time of the disease to benefit from Telemedicine. OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study were to find out the number of face-to-face consultations that could be solved with the same efficacy and safety through telemedicine and to define the most suitable doctor profile to practice teleconsultation. METHODS This is a prospective, descriptive, non-probabilistic and random sampling study using an uncontrolled selection process of a 22-question survey of doctors from the Spanish health service, which analyses the number of medical consultations that could be carried out through telemedicine based on the question: “Approximately, out of every 10 medical consultations you perform, how many of the regular consultations could have been resolved without the need for in-person visits, with the same efficacy and safety? (Telephone, video call, chat, etc.)”. RESULTS The 76 doctors who answered the questionnaire believed that 43% of face-to-face consultations could have been resolved with the same efficacy and safety through telemedicine. The variables that were associated with having a suitable medical profile for teleconsultation were whether the doctor was willing to try telemedicine (OR = 2.01 95% CI 1.23, 3.30) and whether many consultations with physical examination were required (OR = 0.7 95% CI 0.57, 0.91). CONCLUSIONS The doctors believed that almost half of their face-to-face consultations could have been resolved with the same efficacy and safety through telemedicine. A suitable doctor profile to conduct teleconsultations was someone who was willing to try telemedicine and rarely needed to perform physical patient examinations in their face-to-face consultations.