Provider Satisfaction With Virtual Specialist Consultations in a Family Medicine Department

Abstract

Virtual consultations (VCs) are being ordered by primary care physicians in 1 large multispecialty clinic, replacing face-to-face visits with specialists. Virtual consultations involve electronic communication between physicians, including exchanging medical information. The purpose of this study was to assess provider satisfaction with VCs via e-mail survey. Although approximately 30% of the 56 family medicine providers had not tried the VC system after it had been in place for over a year or said that they often forgot that VCs were an option, most of the providers surveyed (73%) felt that VCs provided good medical care. A majority felt that VCs are a cost-effective and efficient tool for our department (65%). Most specialists (81%) reported that VCs were an efficient use of their time, and 67% said that VCs were less disruptive than contacts by telephone or pager. Only 5% felt that VCs do not provide good medical care. Although several of our primary care providers have been enthusiastic about VCs, others have been reluctant to adopt this innovation. Specialists providing VCs tended to be supportive. This illustrates both the difficulty of incorporating e-health innovations in primary care practice and the potential for increased efficiency.

Impact of and Satisfaction with a New eConsult Service: A Mixed Methods Study of Primary Care Providers

“…Studies evaluating similar services noted that using an eConsult service may or may not increase the workload of PCPs in terms of ordering new tests. 11,18 Our analysis did not reveal any dissent regarding the increased workload for PCPs, although we are not able to rule this out completely because we did not explicitly ask this question.…”

“…10 PCPs who see the innovation as having a relative advantage over current practice will more readily commit to and champion the project. 10 There is very little published in this area because eConsult systems are new, and although some initial work looking at user satisfaction with the systems has been done, 11 there is no research that gives an in-depth PCP perspective. Because our system has been in operation since 2010 and we collect routine feedback from PCPs, this presents a unique opportunity to examine the perspectives of PCPs who currently use the service.…”

Ten Steps to Establishing an e-Consultation Service to Improve Access to Specialist Care

“…Telephone consultations have been explored, but finding a common time available for multiple physicians is difficult. 6 Telemedicine similarly has issues with physician synchronicity and has the added complication of requiring specialized equipment. 7 E-mail consultation is an obvious solution due to its simplicity and asynchronicity; however, serious privacy issues exist with sharing patient information over e-mail.…”

Ambulatory Training for Primary Care General Internists: Innovation With the Affordable Care Act in Mind

“…This collaborative approach would be particularly advantageous for patients on Medicaid, who comprise most of the CHC patients. 21 The THC and ACO would share the responsibility for developing appropriate payment models that align the incentives of primary and subspecialty care, promote the public's health, and reduce overuse of resources.…”