Projects per year
Abstract
Background: Telehealth was rapidly adopted in primary care during COVID-19. However, there is a lack of research assessing how translatable in-person consultations are to telehealth. Objective: To examine insights from in-person GP-Patient consultations for patients with chronic conditions, including 1/frequency, duration, conditions of physical examinations, and when they occur during consultations, 2/types of physical artefacts used, 3/clinical tasks performed, and 4/translatability of clinical tasks to telehealth. Methods: Eligible consultations were extracted from a dataset archive named HaRI, which contains 281 in-person GP consultations in de-identified transcript and video format. 38 consultations were included for analysis meeting eligibility criteria in this study. A multi-method approach (using content analysis, visualisation, video and time analysis) was applied to eligible consultations, extracting clinical tasks that involve physical interactions. Finally, an evidence-based scoring system was used on each clinical task, determining the likelihood of whether each task could be translated into telehealth. Results: Nine chronic conditions were observed across 38 GP-Patient consultations, predominately diabetes (39 %, 15/38). Out of these 38 consultations, 76 % (29/38) featured physical examinations, where 68 % (26/38) were initiated by GPs (e.g., auscultation), and 26 % (10/38) were initiated by patients (e.g., self-palpation). The average percentage of time spent on physical examination(s) during consultations is low (13.6 %, SD = 9.4 %). A total of 24 clinical tasks were observed across these 38 consultations. Out of these 24 tasks, 92 % (22/24) were supported by physical artefacts. The average score of a task being translatable to Telehealth is 7/10 (where Score 1 = Not amenable to being replicated over telehealth at this stage, scoring 10 = Easily translatable over telehealth with almost no additional equipment being required). Conclusion: All tasks observed across chronic condition management visits were deemed translatable/potentially translatable to telehealth. However, physical interactions between GPs and patients are still essential. Future research in telehealth should focus on examining ways to support physical examination, reduce uncertainty, promote safety netting, and facilitate patients’ safety at home with effective technology and support.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 105197 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-14 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | International Journal of Medical Informatics |
Volume | 178 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright the Author(s) 2023. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.Keywords
- COVID-19
- General practitioner
- Physical artefact
- Physical examination
- Primary care
- Telehealth
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Dive into the research topics of 'Are chronic condition management visits translatable to telehealth? Analysis of in-person consultations in primary care'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Centre of Research Excellence in Digital Health (CREDiH)
Coiera, E., Glasziou, P., Hansen, D., Magrabi, F., Sintchenko, V., Verspoor, K., Gallego-Luxan, B., Lau, A., Dunn, A., Longhurst, C., Tsafnat, G., Cutler, H., Makeham, M., Shaw, T., Shah, N., Runciman, W. & Liaw, S. T.
1/01/18 → 31/12/22
Project: Research