Provider confidence in the telemedicine spine evaluation: results from a global study. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • PURPOSE: To utilize data from a global spine surgeon survey to elucidate (1) overall confidence in the telemedicine evaluation and (2) determinants of provider confidence. METHODS: Members of AO Spine International were sent a survey encompassing participant's experience with, perception of, and comparison of telemedicine to in-person visits. The survey was designed through a Delphi approach, with four rounds of question review by the multi-disciplinary authors. Data were stratified by provider age, experience, telemedicine platform, trust in telemedicine, and specialty. RESULTS: Four hundred and eighty-five surgeons participated in the survey. The global effort included respondents from Africa (19.9%), Asia Pacific (19.7%), Europe (24.3%), North America (9.4%), and South America (26.6%). Providers felt that physical exam-based tasks (e.g., provocative testing, assessing neurologic deficits/myelopathy, etc.) were inferior to in-person exams, while communication-based aspects (e.g., history taking, imaging review, etc.) were equivalent. Participants who performed greater than 50 visits were more likely to believe telemedicine was at least equivalent to in-person visits in the ability to make an accurate diagnosis (OR 2.37, 95% C.I. 1.03-5.43). Compared to in-person encounters, video (versus phone only) visits were associated with increased confidence in the ability of telemedicine to formulate and communicate a treatment plan (OR 3.88, 95% C.I. 1.71-8.84). CONCLUSION: Spine surgeons are confident in the ability of telemedicine to communicate with patients, but are concerned about its capacity to accurately make physical exam-based diagnoses. Future research should concentrate on standardizing the remote examination and the development of appropriate use criteria in order to increase provider confidence in telemedicine technology.

authors

  • Lovecchio, Francis
  • Riew, Grant J
  • Samartzis, Dino
  • Louie, Philip K
  • Germscheid, Niccole
  • An, Howard S
  • Cheung, Jason Pui Yin
  • Chutkan, Norman
  • Mallow, Gary Michael
  • Neva, Marko H
  • Phillips, Frank M
  • Sciubba, Daniel M
  • El-Sharkawi, Mohammad
  • Valacco, Marcelo
  • McCarthy, Michael H
  • Makhni, Melvin C
  • Iyer, Sravisht

publication date

  • November 22, 2020

Research

keywords

  • COVID-19
  • Surgeons
  • Telemedicine

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC7680633

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 85096399001

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1089/tmj.2014.0125

PubMed ID

  • 33222003

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 30

issue

  • 8