"A Day in the Life" – Distance medicine and its relation to Family Physicians' satisfaction from their work, and their perception of work quality

Galia Zacay, Limor Adler, Anthony Heymann, Shlomo Vinker, Yochai Schonmann, Robert Hoffman, Yossi Azuri, Ilan Green, Ilan Yehoshua, Avivit Golan Choen, Shani Afek, Michal Shani

Background:

The COVID-19 epidemic accelerated the integration of telemedicine technology. Telemedicine is comprised of synchronic visits using video consultations or phone calls including physician-initiated encounters, and non-synchronic work such as e-mail, requests via the electronic medical record and online apps. The relationship between these changes and primary care physicians’ satisfaction, and their perception of these "encounters" has not been investigated.

Research questions:

1. Does the physicians' perception of encounter quality differ between distance encounters, non-synchronic requests and physical encounters?
2. Does The physicians' satisfaction differ between distance encounters, non-synchronic requests and physical encounters?
3. Do Non-synchronic requests generate more follow-up visits?

Method:

Cross sectional study among 67 primary care physicians (PCP) from the four Israeli health-maintenance-organizations. Each participant will document a full working day, by completing data from every encounter.
Data to be collected:
• Patient demographics and general health condition
• Was an appointment scheduled for the encounter?
• Type of encounter
Physician's evaluation of encounter (Scale 1 – 6):
• Was the chosen encounter format optimal for the specific medical problem?
• How did the PCP perceive quality of the encounter?
• Was the PCP satisfied with the encounter?
One month later the physician will check whether the documented encounters generated follow-up visits within the four-week period.

Results:

What has been achieved so far?
We recruited 67 PCPs who agreed to participate in this study. All have completed the first two stages
The first stage: Attending an online introduction meeting.
The second stage: Answering a questionnaire regarding their clinic demographics and characteristics.
The third stage: Documenting a day, has started during the last week of July. We plan to complete this stage by mid-August.
The fourth stage: Retrospective follow-up and evaluation of visits will be completed by mid-September.
We expect to have full results for the Antwerp EGPRN conference.

Conclusions:

Points for discussion:

It would be interesting to repeat this protocol in other countries.

Is telemedicine good ? for the patients? for the physicians? what additional research can be done in order to further answer these questions?

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