Telehealth Better Than In-Person Visits on Some Quality Measures: Study

Modern Healthcare | By Mari Devereaux
 
Telehealth visits for primary care can be comparable in quality to in-person visits, suggesting remote testing and screenings are valuable tools to augment patient care.
 
The finding follows a study of more than 500,000 patients across 200 outpatient care sites in Pennsylvania and Maryland who either had exposure to telemedicine or only had in-person visits between March 1, 2020, and November 30, 2021.
 
The report examines the care quality performance of telemedicine and in-person patient groups for 16 Health Care Effectiveness Data and Information Set measures selected across five domains of primary care: cardiovascular, diabetes, prevention and wellness, behavioral health and pulmonary. 
 
In 13 of 16 medication, testing and counseling-based measures, exposure to telemedicine was associated with similar or significantly better quality performance. The study was published in JAMA Network Open.
 
Higher quality scores for telemedicine prove that remote care is worth the cost of reimbursement just like in-office care, said Dr. Derek Baughman, an author of the study and medical director at Barksdale Air Force Base and Medical Clinic. 
 
“This isn't just one or two measures, it's showing that for most of the measures, we're providing at least comparable quality,” he said. “We're not making these measures worse.”
 
For all counseling and testing-based measures—including vaccinations, cardiovascular disease and diabetes testing and screenings for depression and cancer—telehealth care encounters were more likely to meet HEDIS quality benchmarks than solely in-person patients. 
 
The results are examples of clinical domains where telemedicine could be used as an alternative to in-office care, Baughman said. Prioritizing telehealth visits for chronic disease management and preventive care could lead to better quality outcomes as well as more affordable care.

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