It is known that telemedicine has played a big role in healthcare since the last few years ever since the pandemic started to take effect and now it has become a part of our lives, at least in the US. It is also seen that people are embracing the advantages of telemedicine now whereas earlier they were only bothered about the disadvantages that were caused while using telemedicine. However, it is still known that a lot of people are skeptical about the use of telemedicine when it comes to certain types of clinics such as gynecology for example. People say that for gynecology, you require an in-person visit because people do not feel comfortable getting diagnosed via telemedicine sessions for such an important part of their life.
However, we are here to tell your that a study has already been conducted on whether or not telemedicine is effective for gynecology or not and the results are definitely going to surprise you as much as it did us. Researchers at Maryland School of Medicine conducted “a retrospective review of 1170 patients who participated in telemedicine visits as well as 5303 patients who visited their practitioners in person between March 1, 2020, and December 1, 2021. Investigators evaluated demographic info, the chief reason for the visit, and attendance. A cross-sectional survey of 1248 patients who participated in the telemedicine visits was used to evaluate patient satisfaction, access, quality, safety, and convenience”.
In the review, it was found that there was “an average no-show rate of 22% for in-person visits, as opposed to a 2% no-show rate for telemedicine patients. Additionally, 69% of survey respondents reported satisfaction with telehealth visits”. This clearly shows that people skipped in-person visits more than telehealth visits which does suggest to us that telehealth is successful for gynecology. Now, we know that the sample size of less than 1500 people is not enough to evaluate the general trend of satisfaction for telehealth visits related to gynecology but we do know that this is a good indicator because the patients selected in this review were hand-picked on various factors as well.
