The COVID-19 pandemic urged health systems worldwide to shift from personal visits to safer online video visits quickly. These semi-structured qualitative interviews were carried out to obtain the stakeholder perspectives on the acceptability of the video visits and their impact three weeks after full transition to video visits. The interviews were carried out in six Stanford general primary care and express care clinics with 81 providers, 123 staff, and 97,614 patient visits in 2019. In total, about fifty-three participants were interviewed regarding video visit transitions. In just three weeks, express care and primary care video visits increased to 80% and 75%, respectively. Nine faculty, trained in qualitative research methods, conducted 53 stakeholder interviews in 4 days using purposeful convenience sampling and a rapid qualitative analytic approach for thematic analysis.

After transforming Stanford’s medical system due to the pandemic, critical issues to assist video visit long-term feasibility were identified. Specifically, technology ease of use must improve and support multiparty video conferencing. Providers must care for their patients, regardless of the location, and need decision-making support with virtual examination training and home-based patient diagnostics. Ultimately, video visit reimbursement should be in line with value to the patients’ overall health and well-being.

Ref:  https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1814

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