UCLA Study Charts Benefits of Telehealth for Chronic Pain Treatment

Patients dealing with chronic pain have enough discomfort in their lives without the regular trips to the clinic or doctor’s office. A telehealth platform could make life a lot easier for them.

That’s the take-away from a new study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles and presented at this week’s annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. It notes that telehealth not only eliminates the stress of travel, but saves time, money and parking and gas costs and is favored by patients.

“This era of contactless interactions and social distancing has really accelerated the adoption of telemedicine, but even before the pandemic, patient satisfaction was consistently high,” Laleh Jalilian, MD, a clinical assistant professor at UCLA and lead author of the study, said in a press release. “Patients who are being evaluated for new conditions may be better off having office visits initially. But once patients establish a relationship with providers, follow-up visits can occur efficiently with telemedicine, while maintaining patient rapport and quality outcomes.”

“We believe 50 percent of our visits could be conducted via telemedicine,” she added.

The study adds to the growing library of evidence that connected health technologies can help people living with chronic pain, either through mHealth devices that track and transmit data from the patient at home to caregivers, or through telemedicine technology that enables patients to collaborate with their caregivers virtually, rather than through office or clinic visits.

In the study, pain medicine specialists at the UCLA Comprehensive Pain Center offered patients a choice between in-person care and virtual visits, either through an audio-visual platform or phone calls. Over a seven-month period, they conducted almost 2,950 virtual session with roughly 1,400 patients.

According to the researchers, of the 327 patients who completed a survey on their experiences, 92 percent said they were satisfied with the telehealth option.

Researchers then mapped out the benefits for all who chose telehealth. For those 1,400 patients, they said, the service saved them an average of 26 miles of driving distance and 69 minutes in traffic per trip, as well as $22 on gas and parking. Over three visits, that’s a savings of $156.

Other studies have found further advantages, including environmental benefits tied to a reduction in vehicle use. In addition, a telehealth platform that incorporates remote patient monitoring can help providers identify stressors and improve care management and medication management more quickly, leading to improved clinical outcomes.

Then there’s the overall improvement in a patient’s lifestyle and mood when the stresses of travel are removed.

The service isn’t without its challenges. Researchers noted that telehealth use has skyrocketed because of the coronavirus pandemic, in part because federal and state governments have enacted emergency measures to improve telehealth access and coverage. When the public emergency ends, many of those emergency actions will also end.

According to the researchers, healthcare providers such as pain clinics won’t be able to sustain telehealth use beyond the COVID-19 emergency unless agencies like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services improve reimbursement, encourage more telehealth use and develop payment models that take into account the effort behind establishing a telehealth program.

“Now that telemedicine is more widespread, it may become a valued part of care delivery in chronic pain practices,” Jalilian said. “Clearly many patients benefitted from remote consultations and follow-up appointments using telemedicine. We hope it will encourage policymakers and insurance providers to continue to support these platforms and inspire more innovation in this developing field of research and patient care.”