Telehealth and patient satisfaction: a systematic review and narrative analysis

BACKGROUND: The use of telehealth steadily increases as it has become a viable modality to patient care. Early adopters attempt to use telehealth to deliver high-quality care. Patient satisfaction is a key indicator of how well the telemedicine modality met patient expectations. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this systematic review and narrative analysis is to explore the association of telehealth and patient satisfaction in regards to effectiveness and efficiency. METHODS: Boolean expressions between keywords created a complex search string. Variations of this string were used in Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature and MEDLINE. RESULTS: 2193 articles were filtered and assessed for suitability (n=44). Factors relating to effectiveness and efficiency were identified using consensus. The factors listed most often were improved outcomes (20%), preferred modality (10%), ease of use (9%), low cost 8%), improved communication (8%) and decreased travel time (7%), which in total accounted for 61% of occurrences. CONCLUSION: This review identified a variety of factors of association between telehealth and patient satisfaction. Knowledge of these factors could help implementers to match interventions as solutions to specific problems.