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Ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVE: To assess feasibility, patient satisfaction, and financial advantages of telemedicine for epilepsy ambulatory care during the current COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The demographic and clinical characteristics of all consecutive patients evaluated via telemedicine at a level 4 epilepsy cente...

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Autores principales: Datta, Proleta, Barrett, Wattana, Bentzinger, Monica, Jasinski, Tracy, Jayagopal, Lakshman Arcot, Mahoney, Alexa, Pearon, Crystal, Swaminathan, Arun, Vuppala, Aditya, Samson, Kaeli K., Wang, Hongmei, Taraschenko, Olga
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8803629/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33545652
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.107740
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author Datta, Proleta
Barrett, Wattana
Bentzinger, Monica
Jasinski, Tracy
Jayagopal, Lakshman Arcot
Mahoney, Alexa
Pearon, Crystal
Swaminathan, Arun
Vuppala, Aditya
Samson, Kaeli K.
Wang, Hongmei
Taraschenko, Olga
author_facet Datta, Proleta
Barrett, Wattana
Bentzinger, Monica
Jasinski, Tracy
Jayagopal, Lakshman Arcot
Mahoney, Alexa
Pearon, Crystal
Swaminathan, Arun
Vuppala, Aditya
Samson, Kaeli K.
Wang, Hongmei
Taraschenko, Olga
author_sort Datta, Proleta
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: To assess feasibility, patient satisfaction, and financial advantages of telemedicine for epilepsy ambulatory care during the current COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The demographic and clinical characteristics of all consecutive patients evaluated via telemedicine at a level 4 epilepsy center between March 20 and April 20, 2020 were obtained retrospectively from electronic medical records. A telephone survey to assess patient satisfaction and preferences was conducted within one month following the initial visit. RESULTS: Among 223 telehealth patients, 85.7% used both synchronous audio and video technology. During the visits, 39% of patients had their anticonvulsants adjusted while 18.8% and 11.2% were referred to laboratory/diagnostic testing and specialty consults, respectively. In a post-visit survey, the highest degree of satisfaction with care was expressed by 76.9% of patients. The degree of satisfaction tended to increase the further a patient lived from the clinic (p = 0.05). Beyond the pandemic, 89% of patients reported a preference for continuing telemedicine if their epilepsy symptoms remained stable, while only 44.4% chose telemedicine should their symptoms worsen. Inclement weather and lack of transportation were factors favoring continued use of telemedicine. An estimated cost saving to patient attributed to telemedicine was $30.20 ± 3.8 per visit. SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings suggest that epilepsy care via telemedicine provided high satisfaction and economic benefit, without compromising patients’ quality of care, thereby supporting the use of virtual care during current and future epidemiological fallouts. Beyond the current pandemic, patients with stable seizure symptoms may prefer to use telemedicine for their epilepsy care.
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spelling pubmed-88036292022-02-01 Ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic Datta, Proleta Barrett, Wattana Bentzinger, Monica Jasinski, Tracy Jayagopal, Lakshman Arcot Mahoney, Alexa Pearon, Crystal Swaminathan, Arun Vuppala, Aditya Samson, Kaeli K. Wang, Hongmei Taraschenko, Olga Epilepsy Behav Article OBJECTIVE: To assess feasibility, patient satisfaction, and financial advantages of telemedicine for epilepsy ambulatory care during the current COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The demographic and clinical characteristics of all consecutive patients evaluated via telemedicine at a level 4 epilepsy center between March 20 and April 20, 2020 were obtained retrospectively from electronic medical records. A telephone survey to assess patient satisfaction and preferences was conducted within one month following the initial visit. RESULTS: Among 223 telehealth patients, 85.7% used both synchronous audio and video technology. During the visits, 39% of patients had their anticonvulsants adjusted while 18.8% and 11.2% were referred to laboratory/diagnostic testing and specialty consults, respectively. In a post-visit survey, the highest degree of satisfaction with care was expressed by 76.9% of patients. The degree of satisfaction tended to increase the further a patient lived from the clinic (p = 0.05). Beyond the pandemic, 89% of patients reported a preference for continuing telemedicine if their epilepsy symptoms remained stable, while only 44.4% chose telemedicine should their symptoms worsen. Inclement weather and lack of transportation were factors favoring continued use of telemedicine. An estimated cost saving to patient attributed to telemedicine was $30.20 ± 3.8 per visit. SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings suggest that epilepsy care via telemedicine provided high satisfaction and economic benefit, without compromising patients’ quality of care, thereby supporting the use of virtual care during current and future epidemiological fallouts. Beyond the current pandemic, patients with stable seizure symptoms may prefer to use telemedicine for their epilepsy care. Elsevier Inc. 2021-03 2021-02-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8803629/ /pubmed/33545652 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.107740 Text en © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Datta, Proleta
Barrett, Wattana
Bentzinger, Monica
Jasinski, Tracy
Jayagopal, Lakshman Arcot
Mahoney, Alexa
Pearon, Crystal
Swaminathan, Arun
Vuppala, Aditya
Samson, Kaeli K.
Wang, Hongmei
Taraschenko, Olga
Ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic
title Ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort ambulatory care for epilepsy via telemedicine during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8803629/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33545652
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.107740
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