Background The number of remote video consultations between doctors and patients has increased during the last few years and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The health care service is faced with rising rates of chronic illness and many patients who are more confident in self-management of their illnesses. In addition, there is an improved long-term outlook for serious conditions, such as cancer, that might require flexibility in everyday life. Objective This study aimed to investigate how medical doctors in the outpatient clinic use and experience the use of video consultations with hematological patients, with a focus on relational and organizational aspects. Methods The study was designed as an explorative and qualitative study. Data were collected via participant observations and focus group interviews with medical doctors. Results The study identified possibilities and barriers in relation to adapting to the alternative way of meeting patients in the clinical setting. One of the main findings in this study is that the medical doctors were afraid that they missed important observations, as they were not able to perform a physical examination, if needed. They also emphasized that handshake and eye contact were important in order to get an overall impression of the patient’s situation. It also became clear that the medical doctors used body language a lot more during video consultation compared with consultation in a physical setting. The medical doctors found the contact with the patients via the screen to be good, and the fact that the technology was working well made them feel comfortable with the video consultation. Conclusions In this study, we found that the medical doctors were able to maintain good contact with the patients despite the screen and were able to assess the patients in a satisfying manner. However, there were still uncertainties among some doctors about the fact that they could not examine the patients physically. New knowledge about how to use gestures and body language during video consultation was obtained.
BACKGROUND The number of remote video consultations between doctors and patients have increased during the last years and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The health care service is faced by rising rates of chronic illness, but also many patients who are more confident in self-management of their illness. Add to this the improved long-term outlook for serious conditions such as cancer, that might require flexibility in the everyday life. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate how medical doctors in the out-patient clinic experience the use of video consultations with the hematological patients with focus on relational and organizational aspects. METHODS The study was designed as an explorative and qualitative study. Data were collected via participant observations and focus group interviews with medical doctors RESULTS The study identified possibilities and barriers in relation to adapting to the different way of meeting the patient in the clinical setting. Some of the main findings in this study are that the medical doctors were afraid that they missed important observations as they were not able to perform a physical examination, if needed. They also emphasized that the handshake and eye-contact were important in order to ascertain the overall impression of the patient’s situation. It also came clear that the medical doctors were using their body language a lot more during a video consultation compared with a consultation in normal frames. The medical doctors found the contact with the patients via the screen good and the fact that the technology was working well made them feel secure with the video consultation. CONCLUSIONS In this study was found that the doctors we able to maintain good contact with the patients despite the screen and were able to sense the patient in a satisfying manner. Though there were still uncertainties among some doctors about the fact that they could not examine the patients physically. New knowledge about how to use gestures and non-verbal body language during a video consultation was also discovered.
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