Sufferers who participated in a telehealth follow-up go to after being handled in an emergency division have been extra more likely to return to the ED and grow to be hospitalized in contrast with those that had in-person appointments.
The research, printed this week in JAMA Network Open, analyzed practically 17,000 encounters from two EDs in a single tutorial well being system in Los Angeles between April 2020 and September 2021. To be included, sufferers needed to have a follow-up appointment with a main care doctor inside 14 days of their first ED go to.
Researchers discovered telehealth follow-up was related to 28.3 extra repeated ED visits and 10.6 extra return hospital admissions per 1,000 sufferers in contrast with in-person follow-up care.
For in-person visits, 16% have been adopted by a return ED go to and 4% embody a hospital admission inside 30 days. Amongst telehealth follow-ups, 18% have been adopted by one other emergency go to and 5% with a hospitalization.
“On this retrospective cohort research, we discovered that after being discharged from the ED, sufferers with telehealth post-ED discharge follow-up visits have been extra more likely to return to the ED, even after adjustment for sociodemographic traits, insurance coverage kind, distance to the ED, severity of sickness on the index go to, the time from ED discharge to follow-up and medical complexity (RAF [Risk Adjustment Factor] scores),” the researchers wrote.
“There have been numerically elevated subsequent hospitalizations as properly, however the distinction was not statistically vital. The affiliation of telehealth with elevated healthcare utilization warrants additional research to guage its appropriateness as modality for post-ED follow-up.”
WHY IT MATTERS
The researchers famous there have been some limitations of their evaluation. As an observational research, there may have been lacking data that would not be collected in EHRs, like unemployment, revenue or belief within the healthcare system.
Sufferers additionally may have seen a main care doctor exterior of the well being system studied, whereas Threat Adjustment Issue scores have been usually lacking for uninsured members. Future research also needs to embody extra well being techniques, since the concentrate on one system may restrict the research’s skill to be generalized to different settings.
Although the research exhibits issues with counting on telehealth for post-discharge care, researchers famous it must be thought of in context of telemedicine’s advantages, like managing persistent situations.
“A possible mechanism to clarify elevated healthcare utilization after telehealth visits is the inherent limitation within the skill of clinicians to look at sufferers, which can compel clinicians to have a decrease threshold for referring sufferers again to the ED for an in-person analysis if they’ve any ongoing signs,” the research’s authors wrote.
“It is usually potential that impartial of the dearth of a bodily examination, telehealth clinicians might not be capable to talk as properly with sufferers, resulting in an incapacity to totally consider or intervene on evolving sickness and resulting in deterioration in affected person situation and subsequent want for hospitalization.”
