Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Aug 14, 2019
Date Accepted: Jan 23, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Patient experience and satisfaction using virtual and face-to-face hearing health services
ABSTRACT
Background:
Access to hearing health care globally is a growing concern with an estimated 900 million people with disabling hearing loss by 2050. Hearing loss is one of the most common chronic health conditions, yet access to hearing health care is limited. Incorporating virtual service delivery into current treatment pathways could improve access and allow for better scalability of services. At this point, patient experience and satisfaction with these new modes of service delivery are unknown.
Objective:
This study investigated patient experience and satisfaction accessing hearing health care (HHC) through a hybrid (virtual and face-to-face) clinic.
Methods:
A non-profit Hearing Research Clinic was established in Durban, South Africa. Patients were recruited online to a web-based hearing screening test and then offered virtual and face-to-face options for assessment, treatment and rehabilitation. An online questionnaire was sent to 46 patients who used clinic services on satisfaction, process evaluation, communication preference and experience compared to previous care.
Results:
Of the 46 patients invited, 31 patients (67%) completed the survey (mean age 66.0; ±15.7SD). Almost all patients (92%) reported that the online screening test assisted them in seeking HHC. Patients stayed in contact with the audiologist mostly through WhatsApp instant messaging (87%), and the majority of patients (81%) preferred to use this method of communication. Patients continuing with HHC were significantly older and had significantly poorer speech recognition abilities compared to the patients who discontinued seeking HHC. 61 % of patients previously completed diagnostic testing at other practices, with 95% of those rating services through the hybrid clinic as better. Overall, patient satisfaction was 97%. The Net-Promoter-Score (NPS) was 87, which indicates that patients were very likely to recommend the hybrid clinic to friends/family.
Conclusions:
Patients reported a positive overall experience with high satisfaction rates accessing HHC using a combination of virtual and face-to-face services. The findings support the potential of a hybrid clinic with synchronous and asynchronous modes of communication as a scalable HHC model to address the needs of adults with hearing loss.
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