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Accepted for/Published in: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics

Date Submitted: Sep 20, 2024
Date Accepted: Jun 22, 2025

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Remote Consultations in England During COVID-19: Challenges in Data Quality, Linkage, and Research Validity

Hidalgo-Padilla L, Dabbous M, Halvorsrud K, Beaney T, Gideon G, Gogarty E, Greenfield G, Hayhoe B, Kerr G, Raine R, Rehill N, Stewart R, Gaughran F, Pinto da Costa M

Remote Consultations in England During COVID-19: Challenges in Data Quality, Linkage, and Research Validity

Online J Public Health Inform 2025;17:e66672

DOI: 10.2196/66672

PMID: 40835383

PMCID: 12367347

Remote consultations in England during COVID-19: Challenges in data quality, linkage, and research validity

  • Liliana Hidalgo-Padilla; 
  • Massar Dabbous; 
  • Kristoffer Halvorsrud; 
  • Thomas Beaney; 
  • Gideon Gideon; 
  • Eoin Gogarty; 
  • Geva Greenfield; 
  • Benedict Hayhoe; 
  • Gabriele Kerr; 
  • Rosalind Raine; 
  • Niran Rehill; 
  • Robert Stewart; 
  • Fiona Gaughran; 
  • Mariana Pinto da Costa

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted an accelerated shift towards the use of remote consultations across healthcare, and a significant proportion of healthcare contacts continue to be conducted remotely. Consequently, there is an urgent need to understand the impact of remote consultations on health pathways. In this article, we discuss key challenges in data sources in England, which limit the scope of research on the impact of remote consultations on health outcomes. We present variations in the findings of observational studies on remote consultations and discuss their validity in relation to differences in population and data sources. Finally, we present recommendations to improve data quality for future research, such as data recording platforms and greater structures to support data linkage across primary and secondary care electronic health records.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Hidalgo-Padilla L, Dabbous M, Halvorsrud K, Beaney T, Gideon G, Gogarty E, Greenfield G, Hayhoe B, Kerr G, Raine R, Rehill N, Stewart R, Gaughran F, Pinto da Costa M

Remote Consultations in England During COVID-19: Challenges in Data Quality, Linkage, and Research Validity

Online J Public Health Inform 2025;17:e66672

DOI: 10.2196/66672

PMID: 40835383

PMCID: 12367347

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