For new heart patients referred to a cardiologist, telemedicine as good as in-person visits
New patients seeing a cardiologist for the first time can safely have their first appointment by video or telephone, according to a new analysis published in JAMA Network Open.[1]
Researchers tracked data from nearly 6,000 adult patients who received a first-time cardiology referral due to symptoms related to their cardiovascular health that had not yet been diagnosed. The mean patient age was 61.3 years old, and 52.4% were male.
All patients received care from June 2020 to May 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic was still making a major impact on healthcare services throughout the United States. Patients were able to choose among video, telephone or in-person
All patients had been enrolled as Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) members for at least 12 months prior to the referral and stayed members for at least three months following the referral. Patients with a previous diagnosis of cardiovascular disease were excluded.
Patients were referred for suspected atrial fibrillation (56.4%), suspected coronary artery disease (28.2%) or suspected heart failure (15.4%). Telemedicine was used for 70.9% of visits. Care was mostly comparable for telemedicine and in-person visits, though there were some differences. For example, telemedicine patients were less likely to require a repeat cardiology appointment. In addition, patients with suspected coronary artery disease faced a lower risk of ending up in the emergency department within 30 days if they were seen via telemedicine.
“We were reassured to see that telemedicine was comparable with in-person visits in the hands of our cardiologists,” lead author Scott Casey, MD, MS, an emergency medicine physician with The Permanente Medical Group, said in a statement. “Our research suggests that telemedicine is meeting the needs of our newly referred cardiology patients.”
“Telemedicine is well-accepted by both patients and providers and can often offer more convenient health care access,” added senior author Mary Reed, DrPH, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. “This finding in cardiology adds to the growing body of Kaiser Permanente virtual care research indicating that telemedicine meets patients’ medical needs across a variety of clinical areas.”
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Michael has more than 19 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.