Ainger Ellen, McCANCE Angus C, Burford Charlotte, Black Rebecca, Fernandes Roland
Department of General Surgery, William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, UK.
Department of General Surgery, William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, UK -
Minerva Surg. 2023 Feb;78(1):30-36. doi: 10.23736/S2724-5691.22.09593-4. Epub 2022 May 16.
COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the development and use of telemedicine in surgical practice. Here we set out to understand patient satisfaction with the use of telephone consultation in the general surgical clinic and preference over face-to-face consultation.
A prospective cohort study was carried out for consecutive patients seen in a general surgery telephone clinic by a single surgeon in a district general hospital in the UK from 1 September 2021 to 10 March 2022. Demographic data was collected from electronic patient records. At the end of the consultation patients were asked to: 1) score their satisfaction with the telephone consultation on a 5-point Likert Scale; and 2) whether they preferred telephone consultations to face-to-face appointments. It was noted if a patient required a further face-to-face consultation in addition to the telephone consultation.
The study included 245 patients who were reviewed by telephone consultation. Most patients (59.6%; N.=146) gave the telephone consultation the highest satisfaction score with a further 31% (N.=76) scoring it as a 4 out of 5. Only 2.8% of patients said they would have preferred a face-to-face consultation and gave a median satisfaction score of 2 (IQR 2-3) compared to 5 (IQR 4-5) in those who preferred telephone consultations (P<0.001).
Telemedicine is associated with high levels of patient satisfaction regardless of patient age or gender. Lower rates of satisfaction are associated with the need for further face-to-face follow-up. If telemedicine is to remain a permanent part of surgical practice, disease specific protocols for its use are required.
新冠疫情加速了远程医疗在外科实践中的发展和应用。在此，我们旨在了解普通外科门诊患者对电话咨询的满意度以及相对于面对面咨询的偏好。
对2021年9月1日至2022年3月10日期间，英国一家地区综合医院的一名外科医生在普通外科电话门诊接待的连续患者进行了一项前瞻性队列研究。从电子病历中收集人口统计学数据。在咨询结束时，要求患者：1）根据5级李克特量表对电话咨询的满意度进行评分；2）他们是否更喜欢电话咨询而非面对面预约。记录患者在电话咨询之外是否还需要进一步的面对面咨询。
该研究纳入了245名接受电话咨询的患者。大多数患者（59.6%；N = 146）对电话咨询给出了最高满意度评分，另有31%（N = 76）的患者评分为4分（满分5分）。只有2.8%的患者表示他们更喜欢面对面咨询，其满意度中位数为2（四分位间距2 - 3），而更喜欢电话咨询的患者满意度中位数为5（四分位间距4 - 5）（P < 0.001）。
无论患者年龄或性别如何，远程医疗都与较高的患者满意度相关。较低的满意度与需要进一步的面对面随访有关。如果远程医疗要继续成为外科实践的一个永久组成部分，则需要针对其使用制定特定疾病的方案。
