Background: Ophthalmic clinicians report low confidence in telemedicine-based eye care delivery, but it may have changed given its rapid expansion during the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Introduction: The purpose of this study was to determine clinician confidence in telemedicine-based eye care services during COVID-19. Materials and Methods: An electronic survey was sent to clinicians at University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center (April 17, 2020-May 6, 2020) when nonemergent in-person visits and procedures were restricted. The primary outcome was clinician confidence in using telemedicine-based eye care during COVID-19. Secondary outcomes included telemedicine utilization and its association with clinician confidence using Fisher's exact test. Results: Of the 88 respondents (90.7% response rate; n = 97 total), 83.0% (n = 73) were ophthalmologists and 17.0% (n = 15) were optometrists. Telemedicine utilization increased from 30.7% (n = 27) before the pandemic to 86.2% (n = 75) after the pandemic. Clinicians' confidence in their ability to use telemedicine varied with 28.6% (24/84) feeling confident/extremely confident, 38.1% (32/84) somewhat confident, and 33.3% (28/84) notat-all confident. Most felt that telemedicine was underutilized (62.1%; 54/87) and planned continued use over the next year (59.8%; 52/87). Confident respondents were more likely to have performed three or more telemedicine visits (p = 0.003), to believe telemedicine was underutilized (p < 0.001), and to anticipate continued use of telemedicine (p = 0.009). Discussion: The majority of clinicians were at least somewhat confident about using telemedicine during the pandemic.Clinician confidence was associated with telemedicine visit volume and intention to continue using telemedicine. Conclusions: Policies that foster clinician confidence will be important to sustain telemedicine-based eye care delivery.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.