Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jul 15, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 15, 2021 - Sep 22, 2021
Date Accepted: Dec 13, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Dec 14, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Evaluating the quality of asynchronously- versus synchronously-delivered virtual care: Differences in rates of reported medication side effects among patients with erectile dysfunction on a direct-to-consumer telehealth platform
ABSTRACT
Background:
End-to-end asynchronous health care encounters are becoming an increasingly mainstream form of telehealth. Unlike synchronous telehealth, policy makers and other key health care stakeholders have been hesitant to fully embrace the fully asynchronous modality, especially in the context of direct-to-consumer (DTC) platforms where encounters are patient-initiated and there is no pre-established relationship with their provider. This hesitation is compounded by limited research comparing outcomes between asynchronous and synchronous care, especially in the DTC context.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is to explore whether entirely asynchronous care leads to different patient outcomes in the form of medication-related adverse events when compared to synchronous virtual care
Methods:
Using 10,000 randomly sampled patient records from a prominent, U.S. based DTC platform, we analyzed rates of patient-reported side effects from commonly prescribed medications and compared these rates across modalities of treatment
Results:
Fully end-to-end asynchronous care resulted in lower but nonsignificant rates of reported drug-related side effects compared to synchronous treatment.
Conclusions:
In some circumstances, fully asynchronous care may not create unsafe prescribing conditions when compared to synchronous care. More research is needed to evaluate the safety of asynchronous care across a wider set of circumstances and measures.
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Copyright
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