Telemedicine helped improve the quality of doctors’ patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic and has the potential for improving physician satisfaction and reducing clinician burnout in the future, a new study finds.
New research from the Binghamton University School of Management in New York highlights the increased use of telemedicine since the start of the COVID pandemic. Despite some initial reluctance over its use, the study found that telemedicine has not only increased the quality of patient care, it also has increased physician satisfaction.
“Before the pandemic, face-to-face doctor’s visits were a norm, and physicians used telemedicine sparingly, not widely considering it a mainstream practice. This is true since most physicians were trained without exposure to telemedicine tools,” Sumantra Sarkar, associate professor at Binghamton University School of Management and corresponding author of the study, said in a news release.
During the early days of the pandemic, Sarkar said many physicians felt “uncomfortable and overwhelmed” by the need to learn the new telemedicine tools and techniques, but that perspective changed as physicians became more comfortable using the technology.
“We thought there would be more resistance from doctors to use telemedicine, so it’s possible that in the times of COVID, they found it beneficial because they could at least serve their patients by going around the in-person constraints we had,” he said.
“Although there may have been some initial reservations about telemedicine-mediated online physician visits during the early stages of COVID, given the long-held tradition of face-to-face visits in the US healthcare system, our study confirmed that physicians are satisfied with this technology and believe that it increases quality of care,” the authors wrote in the study
For their study, the researchers used data from the 2021 National Electronic Health Record Survey, which included 1,875 completed physician responses to telemedicine-related questions. Among other findings, the researchers found 65% of the surveyed physicians were satisfied with their relationship with patients during telemedicine visits. Among the telemedicine features that contributed significantly to physician satisfaction were videoconferencing and telemedicine platforms integrated with electronic health records.
While the study focused on physician care in ambulatory, office-care settings, many of the findings are consistent with the perceptions about telemedicine for physicians who work in long-term and post-acute care settings, according to Rajeev Kumar, MD, CMD, FACP, president of the Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kumar said there was not widespread use of telemedicine among physicians in long-term and post acute care settings but that has changed dramatically since the pandemic and physicians and other clinical staff have become more comfortable in using the new technology.
“It was very helpful, it was a game changer,” said Kumar of telemedicine during the pandemic. “It allowed physicians to practice effective medicine without increasing risks to patients.”
Kumar said since the pandemic many nursing homes and long-term care settings have increased the use of telemedicine for things such as virtual doctor visits with patients. Some nursing homes have even purchased new technology that allows physicians to conduct virtual physical exams, such as remote monitoring devices that allow physicians to check patients’ vital signs, lungs and heart.
With the worst of the pandemic now over, Kumar expects the use of telemedicine will only continue to grow, particularly in rural areas where there are limited physicians, for routine doctors’ visits, and in cases where a specialist’s opinions are needed but it is difficult to schedule in-person care.
“Telemedicine isn’t going to replace in-person visits,” he said. “We see it being used appropriately in the right setting for the right patient at the right time. Patients in need of urgent care, after hour visits, or specialty care now have access to telemedicine.”
