Patient Satisfaction With Telemedicine During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Cohort Study

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Medical Informatics
• Public Health

Background:

• New York City was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Healthcare providers rapidly adopted video consultations.
• Patient satisfaction with telemedicine remains largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if patient satisfaction differs between video and in-person visits.
• To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on telemedicine adoption and patient experience.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective observational cohort study of 38,609 patient satisfaction surveys.
• Analysis of clinic encounters from a single urban academic medical center in NYC.
• Comparison of video visits (620) versus in-person visits (37,989) from April 2019 to March 2020, categorized as pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19.

Main Results:

• Video visit utilization increased by 8729% during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Video visits had significantly higher patient satisfaction scores (94.9%) than in-person visits (92.5%).
• Adjusted analyses showed video visits and the COVID-19 period were associated with higher patient satisfaction.

Conclusions:

• Patient satisfaction with video visits is high.
• Telemedicine is not a barrier to shifting away from traditional in-person visits.
• Further research on clinic visit quality indicators is needed for widespread telemedicine adoption.