Exploring patient experiences of video consultations during Covid-19 in an outpatient care setting using routine feedback data from 955 contacts

Abstract

The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license. Objectives: Video consultations (VCs) have been rapidly implemented in response to Covid-19. However, limited research has explored patient experiences of VCs in this context. This research therefore explored patient experiences of VCs during their early stages of implementation in response to Covid-19. Design: Secondary data analysis of routine patient survey responses using descriptive statistics and inductive thematic analysis. Setting and participants: 955 (22.6%) survey responses following a VC using Attend Anywhere in a rural, aging and outpatient care setting between June and July 2020. Results: Most (93.2%) respondents reported having ‘good’ (n=210, 22.0%), or ‘very good’ (n=680, 71.2%) experiences with VCs. Most respondents accessed their VC alone (n=806, 84.4%), except for those aged 71+ (n=23/58, 39.7%). Most participants reported feeling listened to and understood (n=904, 94.7%), felt their needs had been met (n=860, 90.1%) and were able to communicate everything they wanted (n=848, 88.8%). Satisfaction with communication was very strongly associated with satisfaction with the technical performance of the VC (p<0.001). Free text responses had three key themes: i) barriers to VC use including technological difficulties, quality of patient information and accessibility or suitability concerns; ii) potential benefits including reduced stress and anxiety, enhanced accessibility, cost and time savings; and iii) patient suggested improvements including trial calls, turning music off, facilitating photo uploads, expanding written character limit and supporting other internet browsers. Most (92.1%) participants were likely to choose a VC again in the future. Conclusions: The vast majority of respondents reported positive experiences of VCs. Identified benefits of enhanced accessibility, affordability, time, monetary and environmental savings are particularly interesting for future service delivery. Further research is needed, using rapid co-design techniques, to improve feedback methods, patient information and experience to support sustainability and to address accessibility and experience of patients excluded from this work, through lack of VC access.