Bariatric Surgery Program, Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Centre for Addictions and Mental Health, 33 Russell Street, Suite 2065, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S1, Canada.
Obes Surg. 2019 Aug;29(8):2704-2706. doi: 10.1007/s11695-019-03930-4.
Telemedicine offers a potential solution for bariatric surgery (BS) aftercare for patients living in rural areas with limited access to healthcare services. This study aimed to compare post-BS appointment adherence, psychosocial, and body mass index (BMI) outcomes in patients that did or did not use telemedicine. In total, 192 (96 telemedicine and 96 non-telemedicine) patients were matched on gender, age, time since surgery, BMI, and travel distance from program. Additional psychosocial and demographic variables including rurality index (RIO) were collected. Telemedicine users had a significantly higher RIO (p < 0.001) than non-telemedicine users. Appointment attendance, BMI, and psychosocial outcomes were not significantly different between the two groups. Therefore, our results suggest that telemedicine could help overcome geographical barriers to provide comparable quality healthcare services to more remote regions.
远程医疗为居住在医疗服务有限的农村地区的肥胖症患者提供了一种潜在的解决方案。本研究旨在比较使用和不使用远程医疗的患者在接受肥胖症手术后的预约遵守情况、社会心理和体重指数（BMI）结果。共有 192 名（96 名远程医疗和 96 名非远程医疗）患者按照性别、年龄、手术时间、BMI 和与项目的距离进行了匹配。还收集了其他社会心理和人口统计学变量，包括农村指数（RIO）。远程医疗使用者的 RIO 明显高于非远程医疗使用者（p < 0.001）。两组患者的预约出席率、BMI 和社会心理结果没有显著差异。因此，我们的结果表明，远程医疗可以帮助克服地理障碍，为更偏远地区提供可比的高质量医疗服务。
