Study: Telemedicine cuts down on patient travel time
New research published in August in BMC Health Services Research provides insight into potential travel reductions by leveraging telemedicine by patients and healthcare providers.
Richard Wootton, PhD, a professor from the Norwegian Centre for Integrated Care and Telemedicine at the University of North Norway in Tromso, Norway, and colleagues reviewed 20 studies in which the percentage of avoided travel through telemedicine could be inferred, for 5,199 patients.
The study found the percentage of avoided travel reported in 12 of the studies, using store-and-forward technology, at 43 percent, while 70 percent of patients avoided travel in seven studies using telemedicine, and in a single study with a hybrid technique.
“A major benefit offered by telemedicine is the avoidance of travel, by patients, their [caregivers] and healthcare professionals,” the authors wrote. “Unfortunately, there is little published information about the extent of avoided travel.”
Wootton and colleagues—in lieu of considering all credible evidence on avoided travel through telemedicine by fitting a linear model which takes into account the relevant factors in the circumstances of the studies performed—proposed the use of stepwise multiple regressions to identify which factors are significant.
“A simplified model based on the modality of telemedicine employed (i.e., real-time or store and forward) explained 29 percent of the variance,” the authors wrote. The example of stored and forward teledermatology, a subspecialty of dermatology that leverages communications technology, was associated with 43 percent of avoided travel, the authors added.
“The increase in the proportion of patients who avoided travel (25 percent) when real-time telemedicine was employed was significant,” Wootton and colleagues wrote. “Service planners can use this information to weigh up the costs and benefits of the two approaches.”
The authors concluded, “Numbers of studies in some specialties may be small and will therefore provide estimates of travel savings which have a high level of uncertainty. Nevertheless, such results are expected to provide helpful initial indications and should assist in defining areas for future work.”
Richard Wootton, PhD, a professor from the Norwegian Centre for Integrated Care and Telemedicine at the University of North Norway in Tromso, Norway, and colleagues reviewed 20 studies in which the percentage of avoided travel through telemedicine could be inferred, for 5,199 patients.
The study found the percentage of avoided travel reported in 12 of the studies, using store-and-forward technology, at 43 percent, while 70 percent of patients avoided travel in seven studies using telemedicine, and in a single study with a hybrid technique.
“A major benefit offered by telemedicine is the avoidance of travel, by patients, their [caregivers] and healthcare professionals,” the authors wrote. “Unfortunately, there is little published information about the extent of avoided travel.”
Wootton and colleagues—in lieu of considering all credible evidence on avoided travel through telemedicine by fitting a linear model which takes into account the relevant factors in the circumstances of the studies performed—proposed the use of stepwise multiple regressions to identify which factors are significant.
“A simplified model based on the modality of telemedicine employed (i.e., real-time or store and forward) explained 29 percent of the variance,” the authors wrote. The example of stored and forward teledermatology, a subspecialty of dermatology that leverages communications technology, was associated with 43 percent of avoided travel, the authors added.
“The increase in the proportion of patients who avoided travel (25 percent) when real-time telemedicine was employed was significant,” Wootton and colleagues wrote. “Service planners can use this information to weigh up the costs and benefits of the two approaches.”
The authors concluded, “Numbers of studies in some specialties may be small and will therefore provide estimates of travel savings which have a high level of uncertainty. Nevertheless, such results are expected to provide helpful initial indications and should assist in defining areas for future work.”