Telehealth Diagnoses Match In-Person Clinical Visit Diagnoses in 86.9% of Cases, Study Finds | HealthLeaders Media

The COVID-19 pandemic created a dependency on remote patient visits using telehealth.  Studies from several credible sources reveal how accurate a diagnosis is in a telehealth visit.

 In non-primary care specialties, a diagnostic agreement between telehealth visits and in-person visits ranged from 77.3% for otorhinolaryngology to 96.0% for psychiatry. Diagnostic agreement between telehealth visits and in-person visits was significantly higher for specialty care compared to primary care (88.4% versus 81.3%).

There is a significant level of agreement between telemedicine diagnoses and in-person outpatient visit diagnoses, a recent research article found.

In the early phase of the coronavirus pandemic, telehealth utilization increased exponentially—one published estimate pegged the increase in utilization in April 2020 at 20-fold. A concern associated with this increase in telehealth utilization is the accuracy of telemedicine diagnoses compared to in-person visits.

IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 

Among the 313 (13.1% of the total) cases where there was no agreement between the telehealth diagnosis and the in-person visit diagnosis, 166 cases had the potential for morbidity and 36 of those cases had actual morbidity.

 Among the 313 cases where there was not an agreement between the telehealth diagnosis and the in-person visit diagnosis, 30 had the potential for mortality, and 3 of those cases had actual mortality.  

Telehealth diagnoses often should be paired with in-person visit diagnoses, the study's co-authors wrote. "These findings suggest that video telemedicine visits to home may be good adjuncts to in-person care. Primary care video telemedicine programs designed to accommodate new patients or new presenting clinical problems may benefit from a lowered threshold for timely in-person direct follow-up in patients suspected to have diseases typically confirmed by physical examination, neurological testing, or pathology."

There are important caveats about using telehealth for diagnosis.

INTERPRETING THE DATA

Telehealth Diagnoses Match In-Person Clinical Visit Diagnoses in 86.9% of Cases, Study Finds | HealthLeaders Media