Remote Consultations in General Practice - A Systematic Review

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Primary Care Medicine
• Telehealth

Background:

• Telemedicine, specifically remote consultations, emerged in the 1980s to extend healthcare access to remote populations.
• Remote consultations facilitate the exchange of medical information to improve patient health outcomes.
• General practice has increasingly adopted telemedicine for various patient care scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the types and utilization of remote consultation methods within general practice.
• To systematically review existing literature on remote consultations in primary care settings.

Main Methods:

• A systematic review methodology was employed, adhering to PRISMA guidelines.
• Literature searches were conducted across four major scientific databases: Medline-PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and IEEE Xplore.
• Keywords included 'remote consultation' combined with 'general practice,' 'family medicine,' or 'primary care,' resulting in the analysis of 12 selected studies.

Main Results:

• Remote consultations proved essential before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for managing infected patients.
• Teleconsultations demonstrated the ability to reduce patient visit frequency, especially during lockdowns.
• Both patients and general practitioners (GPs) reported satisfaction with remote consultation methods.

Conclusions:

• Remote consultations are a necessary advancement in healthcare delivery, offering improvements over traditional systems.
• Despite their benefits, remote consultations have inherent limitations and cannot entirely substitute for physical consultations.
• The findings underscore the importance of integrating telemedicine while acknowledging the continued need for in-person medical evaluations.