A telemedicine strategy to reduce waiting lists and time to specialist care: A retrospective cohort study

The demand for specialty care is rising worldwide. In the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, more than 150,000 people were waiting for specialist consultations in 2013. A telemedicine programme (RegulaSUS) developed referral protocols, audited waitlisted cases, authorised/prioritised referrals by risk and discuss deferred cases primary-care physician. This study assesses the effectiveness of RegulaSUS.

A retrospective cohort analysis with contemporaneous controls was performed from June 2014 to June 2016. Six medical specialties included in RegulaSUS (50,185 patients) were compared to 50,124 control patients waitlisted according to the usual routine (scheduled for specialty consultation at the next available date). The groups were matched (1:1) by semester and year of waitlisting and by the specialty demand-to-supply ratio. Primary outcomes were referral-to-consultation time and number of waitlisted patients.

The mean referral-to-consultation time was 584.8 days in the intervention group and 607.0 days in controls (p<0.001). For specialties regulated by RegulaSUS, the mean referral-to-consultation time was 237.6 days for higher-risk patients. At the end of the observation, 26,708 control patients had been unlisted compared to 31,050 patients in the intervention group (reduction of 53.5% vs. 61.9%, respectively; p<0.001). The number of cancelled referrals was lower in the control group (n=14,403; 28.7%) than in the intervention group (n=16,387; 32.7%; p<0.001).

Telemedicine support for primary care effectively decreased the time to specialty consultation, reduced the number of waitlisted patients and allowed sicker patients to reach a specialist faster.