Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Feb 2, 2022
Date Accepted: Jun 12, 2022
Assessing Telemedicine Efficiency in German Follow-up Care With Video Consultations for Patients in Orthopedic and Trauma Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Telemedicine can help mitigate important healthcare challenges, such as demographic change and the current COVID-19 pandemic, in high-income countries like Germany. It gives physicians and patients the opportunity to interact via video consultations regardless of their location, thus offering costs and time savings for both sides.
Objective:
This study aims to investigate whether telemedicine can be implemented efficiently in the follow-up care for patients in orthopedic and trauma surgery with respect to patient satisfaction, physician satisfaction, and quality of care.
Methods:
A prospective randomized controlled trial conducted in a German university hospital enrolled 60 patients with different knee and shoulder conditions. For their follow-up appointments, patients received either an in-person consultation in the clinic (control group) or a video consultation with their physician (telemedicine group). Patients’ and physicians’ subsequent evaluations of these follow-up appointments were collected and assessed using separate questionnaires.
Results:
Based on data from 52 consultations after 8 withdrawals, it was found that patients were slightly more satisfied with video consultations (mean 1.58) than with in-clinic ones (mean 1.64), although the difference was not statistically significant (P=.690). After excluding video consultations marred by technical problems, no significant difference was found in physician satisfaction between the groups (mean 1.47 vs 1.32, P=.310). Further analysis indicated that telemedicine can be applied to broader groups of patients, and that patients who have prior experience with telemedicine are more willing to use it for follow-up care.
Conclusions:
Telemedicine can be an alternative and efficient form of follow-up care in orthopedic and trauma surgery in Germany, and it has no significant disadvantages compared with in-person consultations in the clinic. Clinical Trial: German Register for Clinical Trials ID: DRKS00023445; https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00023445
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