Impact of telehealth on health care resource utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-18-2022
Publication Title
Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research (JCER)
First Page
301
Last Page
309
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2217/cer-2021-0242
Additional Publication URL
https://doi.org/10.2217/cer-2021-0242
Abstract
Aim: To assess healthcare utilization (HCRU) among patients with incident telehealth visit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials & methods: Retrospective pre-post analyses was conducted using HealthJump data. Adults continuously enrolled with an incident telehealth visit between Feb and April 2020 were identified. Demographics, clinical characteristics, proportion of patients with ≥1 HCRU visits and post-index trends in HCRU were analyzed. Results: Sample constituted 2799 patients, 60.34% female and 46.23% white with mean age 59.70. Significant increase in patients with outpatient visits (5.36%, p < 0.005; only established), non-face-to-face visits (99.50%, p < 0.005) and prescription use (12.86%, p < 0.005) was reported. Conclusion: Among patients utilizing telehealth during COVID-19 pandemic, HCRU changed significantly. Better deployment policies and adoption techniques of telehealth could potentially act as a strong tool to revolutionize the healthcare delivery, with or without the pandemic.
Recommended Citation
Arora, Prachi; Mehta, Darshan; and Ha, Jane, "Impact of telehealth on health care resource utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic" (2022). Scholarship and Professional Work – COPHS. 297.
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cophs_papers/297