JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The integration of teleconsultation into health care system as a complement to existing approach of care are growing rapidly. There is, however, limited information on the extent of its implementation across developing countries.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to determine the availability and the extent of teleconsultation in Malaysian primary care clinics.

Methods:

A cross-sectional study involving public primary care clinics in Malaysia was conducted between November 2020 and December 2020. All clinics with more than 300 daily patient attendances were recruited. A web-based self-administered questionnaire comprised information on availability of the service, mediums used, and the types of services provided was distributed to the medical officer in charge of the respective clinic.

Results:

In total, 97.6% (n=249) of the clinics responded. Out of 249 clinics, 45.8% provided teleconsultation. Of these, 60.5% provided telephone consultation only, 24.6% offered video and telephone consultations while 14.9% had video consultation only. Eighty percent of these clinics were in urban areas. Breakdown by states showed that 17.5% and 16.7% of these clinics were from the larger states; other states comprised less than 10% each. For those clinics providing video consultation, funding for the service was mostly from the MOH (93.3%). Conversely, nearly 1 out of 4 clinics that provide telephone consultation funded the service either by donation or through self-funding. Most of the clinics used teleconsultation to provide service for diabetic clinic and hypertension clinic. Less than 50% of the clinics with teleconsultation used it for follow-up with both allied health and pharmacists.

Conclusions:

Our findings showed that telephone consultation as compared to video consultation was more widely used despite having a quarter of the funding being self-subsidized or through donations. Also, the teleconsultation was less utilized among both allied health and pharmacists. Plans for the expansion of teleconsultation in Malaysian primary health care should take into consideration of these findings to ensure a better and a more cost-effective uptake of teleconsultation by the health services in general and to reduce the gap of accessibility to health services.