
Despite distance and occasional technical glitches, a new study finds that most patients like seeing a surgeon for the first time via video. The study was published Jan. 19 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. “We see patients that live hours away. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it threw fuel on the fire of our telehealth program,” said study co-author Dr. Alexander Hawkins, associate professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. “Across the entire health care system, we now do about 20,000 telehealth visits a month,” he said in a college news release. “Previously, there had been concerns about whether we could effectively communicate with patients remotely, but we found that patients are just as satisfied with telehealth visits as in-person appointments.” The study included 387 patients who participated in first-time visits between May 2021 and June 2022 at general surgery clinics across the Vanderbilt system. Researchers used a standard questionnaire to look at the quality of shared decision-making and asked patients and surgeons open-ended questions about their consultations. In all, 77.8% of patients had an in-person visit, while 22.2% saw their doctor remotely. Both groups reported high levels of quality communication during these appointments. Levels of shared decision-making and quality of communication were similar between remote visits and in-person care, the study found. In responding to the… read on > read on >