Health Care Professionals’ Experiences With the Use of Video Consultation: Qualitative Study

Abstract

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.

Uncovering healthcare staff attitudes to the rapid deployment of telehealth in Victoria, 2020–2021: a 12‐month telehealth experience

“…Our findings point to ongoing concerns about being able to connect patients to telehealth, and to making decisions that telehealth is not suitable. In agreement with others, telehealth cannot replace face-to-face interactions, when physical examination is required, 20,21 or when vulnerable patients are at risk. There were very few respondents in our study working in inpatient care to be able to assess how telehealth was perceived in acute hospital wards.…”

“…15 Furthermore, single healthcare disciplines using telehealth have been examined, for example, geriatrician or memory clinics, 20 cancer care 9 or haematology. 21 First, our results showed that telehealth can fit with usual clinical practises (in ambulatory community settings), when therapeutic rapport has been established, that is, reviews, pre-discharge planning or for educational interactions. Reassuringly, many clinicians (40-50%) and managers (39-60%) in these settings planned to continue or to increase their utilisation of telehealth if no more virus outbreaks occur.…”

“…In contrast, prior studies have examined the perspectives of small numbers of patients towards telehealth in, for example, gestational diabetes, 19 cancer 10 or in community‐dwelling healthcare consumers 15 . Furthermore, single healthcare disciplines using telehealth have been examined, for example, geriatrician or memory clinics, 20 cancer care 9 or haematology 21 …”

Use of a pharmacy-based GP video consultation service: a mixed methods study

“…19 , 23 The GPs in this study reported that the availability of diagnostic tools was reassuring, and this fits with previous research where GPs have reported satisfaction with video consultation but concerns about the lack of physical examination. 24 …”

Usefulness of a Digitally Assisted Person-Centered Care Intervention: Qualitative Study of Patients’ and Nurses’ Experiences in a Long-term Perspective

“…The review mainly identified positive experiences with using telehealth [20], which is in line with our findings, wherein most barriers disappeared when the nurses had positive experiences with DA-GSD. A study examining the use of video consultations by doctors also reported the fear of deterioration in the physician-patient relationship, for example, not shaking the patient's hand and having eye contact prevented access to a great deal of important information that the doctors were reluctant to miss [25]. However, they found that they could maintain good contact and assess patients satisfactorily while achieving more relaxed interaction in video consultations [25].…”