JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Given the sudden shift to telemedicine during the early COVID-19 pandemic, we conduct a survey of practicing-physician telehealth experience during pre-pandemic and early-pandemic periods. Our survey estimates that most U.S. patient-visits during the early COVID-19 pandemic period were conducted via telehealth. Given this magnitude and potential benefits/challenges of telehealth for U.S. healthcare, we obtain, summarize, and analyze telehealth views/experiences of U.S. practicing-physicians.

Objective:

From the U.S. practicing-physician perspective, we examine extent of shift toward telehealth training and care provision during the early-pandemic. We seek to determine the shift’s short- and long-term implications upon quality, access, and mode of U.S. healthcare delivery.

Methods:

A purposive, snowball-sampled survey of 148 U.S. practicing-physicians. Data was collected from July 17, 2020 through September 4, 2020.

Results:

Sample training intensity scaled 21-fold during the early-pandemic period; patient-care visits conducted via telehealth rose from 13.1%, on average, directly before pandemic to 59.7%, on average, during early-pandemic. Physicians feel that telehealth patient-visits and face-to-face patient-visits are comparable in quality; the difference is not statistically significant in a non-parametric sign test (P = 0.11). Physicians feel that telehealth care should continue to play a larger role (44.9% of visits) in U.S. healthcare post-pandemic. Survey findings suggest high market-concentration in telehealth softwares, a market-structural characteristic that may have implications upon cost and access. Results vary markedly by physician employer-type.

Conclusions:

During the shift toward telehealth, there has been considerable discovery among physicians regarding U.S. telehealth physicians. Physicians are now better-prepared to undertake telehealth care from a training perspective. They are favorable toward a permanently-expanded telehealth role, with potential for enhanced healthcare access; realization of enhanced access may depend upon market-structural characteristics of telehealth software platforms.