Caregiver-Reported Feasibility and Acceptability of Direct-to-Consumer Telemedicine in the Pediatric Ambulatory Setting During COVID-19 Pearl 1Donald
1 Subramanian , Caren
1,2 MPH ,
Steinway, LMSW Michelle Katzow, 1,2 and Sophia Jan, MD, MSHP
1,2 MD ,
Jack Chen,
1, MBS
and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell; 2Division of General Pediatrics, Cohen Children’s Medical Center of Northwell Health
Background • Cohen Children’s Medical Center of Northwell Health has 17 departments and a patient volume of over 380,000 ambulatory encounters annually. • With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, most physician-patient encounters transitioned to virtual sessions. • During initial implementation of telemedicine in the pediatric service line, from March 1,2020 and April 18, 2020, 3,016 telemedicine encounters occurred in place of traditional in person ambulatory visits. • Given the rapid implementation of and shift to telemedicine, it is important to understand if caregivers of pediatric patients view telemedicine as a viable alternative to in-person ambulatory care.
Results • 419 individuals completed the survey out of 3,016 (13.9%) telemedicine visits conducted during the 6-week period of 3/8/2020-4/18/2020. Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of Survey Population
• Northwell Health AW/Touchpoint was the main platform, and 78.3% of users stated the app felt safer to use than other apps. • 57% of visits were routine or for the management of existing chronic conditions; 28% were to address acute issues; 4% for COVID-19related concerns. • Only 4% of visits had documented technology challenges
Discussion • Patients and families find telehealth comfortable and feasible for use. As access to care and travel time to appointments are often large barriers for patients, telehealth was beneficial to mitigate these variables. • Limitations to this study include the study sample population, given that those who answered the survey are individuals who 1) had access to an electronic device 2) were literate and comfortable with understanding the English language 3) were technologically literate.
Hypothesis • We hypothesize that telemedicine is feasible to implement and acceptable to caregivers of pediatric patients receiving ambulatory care.
Future Direction
Methods • All caregivers of patients who attended a telemedicine visit in place of an in-person ambulatory visit between March 1 to April 18, 2020 were included in the study. • Individuals were excluded if they had an appointment in the divisions of adolescent medicine, or if there was no email in their medical record. • Participants were sent an adapted Telehealth Usability Questionnaire that measured usefulness, ease of use, interface quality, interaction quality, reliability, and satisfaction via email. Additional patient demographic and visit characteristics were obtained through chart review. • Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the results including mean, median, and standard deviation, frequency.
Results contd.
Table 2: Telehealth Usability Questionnaire Responses
• More studies should be conducted to assess the relevance of telemedicine post-pandemic. • The comfort level and perceived barriers of non-English speakers with telemedicine services, should be assessed, to understand patient reported outcomes in this setting.
References Figure 7: Independent CRISPR knockout of CDK4 or CDK6 does not cause dropout in most breast cancer cell lines studied.
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