A dual team study of in-person, same-specialty follow-up rates after telehealth appointments published by Epic Research examined the cadence of care and found virtual medicine to be an effective tool, Healthczre IT News reports.
Analyzing the effectiveness of different methods for delivering care is important to guide decisions about how to allocate resources, according to the study’s key findings report.
To determine which specialties were able to fulfill patient needs using telehealth and which required in-person follow-up visits more often, two teams of researchers examined more than 35 million telehealth visits conducted between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2022.
What they found, according to the report, is that high in-person follow-up rates within three months were present only in specialties that require regular hands-on care, such as obstetrics and surgery.
Follow-up visits within 90 days of telehealth appointments were not, by and large, instances of duplicative care, but a method of care delivery that can increase healthcare access, the researchers say. Read more.
