Efficiency and satisfaction with telephone consultation of follow-up patients in neuro-urology: Experience of the...

The COVID-19 pandemic led to limit patients' visits to the neuro-urology department. Telemedicine was seen as a pragmatic solution to provide follow-up care. This study aimed to assess the efficiency and satisfaction of a telephone consultation in neuro-urology.

During the pandemic, the scheduled medical visits were converted into telephone consultation. For each teleconsultation, the physician assessed the efficiency and the patient-rated global satisfaction of the teleconsultation. The physician and the patient assessed whether this teleconsultation replaced a physical visit.

About 358 neurologic patients were included in the study. The mean efficiency of the telephone consultation was 9.3/10 (±1.5). The mean global satisfaction was 9.0/10 (±1.3). The majority of the patients (52.4%) would prefer a physical consultation. 90.2% might convert some clinic visits to teleconsultations in the future. No agreement was found between the patient and the physician when they were asked if the teleconsultation replaced the physical consultation initially scheduled (weight kappa = 0.02; 95% confidence interval = [-0.06 to 0.11]). Cognitive impairment, difficulty to obtain relevant information, and lack of physical examination were unfavorable to the efficiency of the teleconsultation. Cognitive impairment, embarrassing nature of the teleconsultation, and preference for a physical consultation were unfavorable to satisfaction of the patient.

Telemedicine in neuro-urology was associated with a high satisfaction of the patients and was described as efficient by the physicians. Despite this, the majority of the patients reported a preference for physical consultation. The COVID-19 pandemic might be an opportunity to refine our practices in neuro-urology and to develop telemedicine.