Analysis of Clinician and Patient Factors and Completion of Telemedicine Appointments Using Video

JAMA: Analysis of Clinician and Patient Factors and Completion of Telemedicine Appointments Using Video – A new research article published by JAMA Network Open, examines the results of a quality improvement study of more than 130,000 scheduled video visits at an academic health system between March 1 and Dec. 31, 2020. Patient characteristics including older age and ethnicity are associated with the successful completion of video telemedicine visits, a new research article says.

The study generated several key data points.

90% of video visits were successful and 10% were converted to telephone visits
Lower clinician comfort with technology was associated with conversion to telephone visits (odds ratio 0.15)
Advanced patient age (66 to 80 years old) was associated with conversion to telephone visits (odds ratio 0.28)
Lower patient socioeconomic status including low access to high-speed Internet was associated with conversion to telephone visits (odds ratio 0.85)
Patient ethnic and racial minority status was associated with conversion to telephone visits (for Black and African American patients, the odds ratio was 0.75)
Relatively high patient income ($75,001 to $213,000) was associated with successful video visits (odds ratio 1.18)
Patient use of a tablet or laptop was associated with successful video visits (odds ratio 1.41)