ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Areeba Zain, MD, MPH; Derek Baughman, MD; Abdul Waheed, MD, MS
Corresponding Author: Areeba Zain, MD, MPH; Family Medicine Residency Program - WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital
Email: ebazain@gmail.com
DOI: 10.3122/jabfm.2023.230213R1
Keywords: Chi-Square Test, Continuity of Care, Health Policy, Hospital Medicine, Patient Discharge, Patient Readmission, Primary Health Care, Telemedicine, Transition of Care
Dates: Submitted: 06-01-2023; Revised: 09-29-2023; Accepted: 10-09-2023
FINAL PUBLICATION: |HTML| |PDF|
INTRODUCTION: Unplanned readmissions can be avoided by standardizing and improving the coordination of care after discharge. Telemedicine has been increasingly utilized; however the quality of this care has not been well studied. Standardized measures can provide an objective comparison of care quality. The purpose of our study was to compare quality performance transitions of care management in the office vs telemedicine.
METHODS: The Epic SlicerDicer tool was used to compare the percentage of encounters that were completed via telemedicine (video visits), or via in-person for comparison, Chi-squared tests were used.
RESULTS: A total of 13,891 patients met the inclusion criteria during the study time frame. There were 12,846 patients in the office and 1,048 in the Telemedicine cohort. The office readmission rate was 11.9% with 1,533 patients out of 12,846 compared to Telemedicine with the rate of readmission at 12.1% with 126 patients out of 1,045 patients. The P-value for the Chi-square test between the pre-pandemic and study time frame was 0.15 and 0.95 respectively. Demographic comparability was seen.
DISCUSSION: Our study found a comparable readmission rate between patients seen via in-office and telemedicine for TCM encounters. The findings of this study support the growing body of evidence that telemedicine augments quality performance while reducing cost and improving access without negatively impacting HEDIS performance in healthcare systems.
CONCLUSION: Telemedicine poses little threat of negatively impacting HEDIS performance and might be as effective as traditional office care transitions of care management.