Background/AimsTelemedicine can be broadly defined as the use of telecommunicationtechnologies to provide medical information and services. It can beaudio, visual, or text. Its use has increased dramatically during theCOVID-19 pandemic to ensure patient and healthcare worker safety.Any healthcare professional can engage with it. It carries benefits likereduced stress and expense of traveling, maintenance of socialdistancing, and reduced risk of infection. There are some potentialdrawbacks such as lack of physical examination, liability andtechnological issues.MethodsA questionnaire was sent to 200 patients, selected from differentvirtual clinics (new and review, doctor and ANP led) run betweenMarch and May 2020 in the rheumatology department of UniversityHospital Waterford. We formulated 14 questions to cover the followingaspects: demography, the purpose of the consult, punctuality, feedback, medico-legal concerns, and free text for comments. A selfaddressed return envelope was included.Results83 responses were received. 2 were excluded. The ratio of females tomale respondents was 59: 41, with the majority over 60 years old. Themain appointment type was review 67 (83%). 80% of patients werecalled either before or at the time of their scheduled appointment. Thevast majority (98.8%) of our patients had confidence in our dataprotection and trusted our system to maintain their confidentiality.95% stated that they felt comfortable, were given enough time toexplain their health problem and felt free from stress. The respondentswho preferred attending the clinic in person (17 in total) compared tothe virtual were mostly follow up patients- 12 vs. 5 new.ConclusionPatient satisfaction among those surveyed was high, despite having tointroduce the service abruptly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thereare many improvements we can adopt to improve our service andeven maintain after the pandemic as a way of communicating with ourstable patients. As we are covering a large geographical catchment, we can continue to implement the virtual clinic for some appointments.We should prioritize our efforts on identifying the right patient and thetype of service we can offer, further training of staff, and increasingawareness of the patients as to how to get the most out of a virtualappointment.
Rheumatology virtual clinics during COVID-19: Are our patients satisfied?