Telehealth Care Quality Better Than In-Person For Some Measures

While researching the effects of telehealth and in-person care within a large integrated health system, a study published in JAMA Network Open found that virtual care methods can expand healthcare capabilities, performing on par or better than in-person care on most quality measures evaluated.

Due to in-person care restrictions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, many patients and providers turned to telehealth to ensure necessary access to healthcare. Though telehealth use has since leveled off, it remains popular. Thus, researchers set out to assess the quality of patient care among those who used telehealth compared to those who did not.

Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study that included 526,874 patients, 409,732 of whom received only in-person care, and 117,142 participated in telehealth visits. Of those who received only in-person care, 49.7 percent were women, 85 percent were non-Hispanic, and 82 percent were White. Of those who received care via telehealth, 63.9 percent were women, 90 percent were non-Hispanic, and 86 percent were White.

Researchers noted that patients in the in-person-only group performed better on medication-based measures. But only three of the five measures had significant differences: patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) receiving antiplatelets, those with CVD receiving statins, and those with upper respiratory infections avoiding antibiotics.

Researchers also noted that patients participating in telehealth performed better than those in the -person-only group on four testing-based measures. These four measures included patients with CVD with lipid panels, patients with diabetes with hemoglobin A1c testing, patients with diabetes with nephropathy testing, and blood pressure control.

Further, those participating in telehealth performed better than their counterparts on seven counseling-based measures, including cervical cancer screening, breast cancer screening, colon cancer screening, tobacco counseling and intervention, influenza vaccination, pneumococcal vaccination, and depression screening.

Based on these study findings, researchers concluded that telehealth could augment care for various conditions, especially chronic diseases. The study also supplies information that could assist providers in determining an ideal ratio of in-person and telehealth visits.

But researchers also noted several limitations associated with the study. These included their inability to control for the number of in-person and telehealth visits, potential inaccuracies associated with the EMR data used, and sampling limitations.

Several recent studies have indicated how telehealth can assist healthcare delivery.

esearch from July revealed that more than half of providers believe telehealth helped increase patient visits. The 2022 Health Care Insights Study released by CVS Health shows that providers believe that telehealth offers ease of access for patients and that patients find telehealth convenient.

To meet the demand for virtual care services, telehealth providers are enhancing their offerings.

For example, in July, Teladoc Health added various features to its virtual primary care service, including in-network referrals and medication delivery.