Patient Experiences With Telemedicine in a National Health Service Rheumatology Outpatient Department During Coronavirus Disease-19

The coronavirus disease-19 pandemic changed rheumatology practice with remote consultations being increasingly utilized where appropriate. We evaluated patient experiences with telephone consultations and report on patient attitudes toward current health care delivery and perspectives of telemedicine in a UK National Health Service rheumatology outpatient department. We analyzed 297 questionnaires from a postal survey conducted during the summer of 2020 after a telephone follow-up consultation. The mean age of respondents was 67 years and 68% were female. The 161 respondents (54%) reported it was their first telephone consultation and overall, 239 (84%) were satisfied with their health assessment. 60% would be happy to have future routine follow-up telephone consultations. Patients advised to shield shared similar satisfaction to the whole sample. However, with increasing age we identified a higher proportion were dissatisfied with telephone consultations and unlikely to have accessibility to video consultation or preferentially opt for this modality.

Automated summary

The study found that most patients were satisfied with telephone consultations and were willing to continue receiving this form of routine follow-up in the future. However, older patients were more likely to be dissatisfied with telephone consultations and less likely to have access to video consultations or prefer this modality.