Disparities in Video-Based Primary Care Use Among Veterans with Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

Background Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is prevalent among Veterans, and video care enhances access to CVD care. However, it is unknown which patients with CVD conditions receive video care in primary care clinics, where a large proportion of CVD services is delivered. Objective Characterize use of VA video primary care for Veterans with two common CVDs, heart failure and hypertension. Design Retrospective cohort study. Patients Veterans seen in VA primary care with diagnoses of heart failure and/or hypertension in the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and for the first two pandemic-years. Main Measures The primary outcome was use of any video-based primary care visits. Using multilevel regressions, we examined the association between video care use and patient sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, controlling for time and adjusting for patient- and site-level clustering. Key Results Of 3.8M Veterans with 51.9M primary care visits, 456,901 Veterans had heart failure and hypertension, 50,753 had heart failure only, and 3,300,166 had hypertension only. Veterans with heart failure and hypertension had an average age of 71.6 years. 2.9% were female, and 34.8% lived in rural settings. Patients who were male, aged 75 or older, or rural-dwelling had lower odds of using video care than female patients, 18–44-year-olds, and urban-dwellers, respectively (male patients’ adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 0.73, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.72–0.74; 75 years or older, AOR 0.38, 95% CI 0.37–0.38; rural-dwellers, AOR 0.71, 95% CI 0.70–0.71). Veterans with heart failure had higher odds of video care use than those with hypertension only (AOR 1.05, 95% CI 1.04–1.06). Conclusions Given lower odds of video primary care use among some patient groups, continued expansion of video care could make CVD services increasingly inequitable. These insights can inform equitable triage of patients, for example by identifying patients who may benefit from additional support to use virtual care.