This appeared last week:
Telemedicine as Good as In-Person for Many Health Conditions: Review
MONDAY, Jan. 3, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Chatting with your doctor via video about your health issues works just as well as an in-person office visit, at least when it comes to managing chronic illnesses, a new review suggests.
Replacing office visits with video checkups delivered results that were just as effective for patients being treated for conditions like diabetes, respiratory illnesses, chronic pain, heart problems and neurological disorders, researchers reported recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
"In general, the evidence shows that using video teleconferencing in health care results in outcomes that are just as good as and in some cases better than in-person care," said lead researcher Jordan Albritton, a public health analyst with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
Despite these findings, experts maintain that in-person physical exams remain essential to quality health care, particularly for new patients who have just fallen ill.
"Telemedicine is a very limited form of really assessing a patient," said Dr. Len Horovitz, an internist and pulmonologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
"Sure, if it's a follow-up visit, let's say you're following a diabetic and they can take their blood sugars and they're good reporters, you can manage things and make adjustments," he continued. "But I can't imagine taking care of a patient virtually as a first visit and keeping that patient as an internist without a complete examination in person."
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in the use of video teleconferencing in health care, researchers explained in background notes. A 2020 survey found that 22% of patients and 4 of 5 doctors reported having participated in a video health exam — three times the rate from the previous year.
For this study, Albritton and his colleagues analyzed 20 clinical trials conducted between 2013 and 2021 that tested telemedicine's ability to either replace or enhance the usual care a patient would receive through office visits.
The trials found that video telemedicine generally provided care as good as in-person care, and sometimes was even better.
But the researchers noted that the clinical trials included in the study didn't evaluate telemedicine's effectiveness in diagnosing new illnesses or providing preventive care.
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More information
Johns Hopkins has more about the benefits of telemedicine.
SOURCES: Jordan Albritton, PhD, MPH, public health analyst, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, N.C.; Len Horovitz, MD, internist/pulmonologist, Hill Hospital, New York City; Annals of Internal Medicine, Dec. 7, 2021
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This seems to me to show that in providing care to regular patients, when constrained by issues like the pandemic, telehealth is well worthwhile and ought be supported by Medicare!
David.
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