Telemedicine: An Effective Tool for Patient-Physician Communication

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of telemedi- cine appointments in a tertiary orthopedic hip clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic, as a substitute for traditional in-person visits. One hundred six- ty-three patients had a telemedicine visit from March to September 2020. Patients were divided into two cohorts. The presurgical group included all patients who had not undergone any prior surgical hip procedures. The pre- surgical group was further subdivided into two groups based on the pur -pose of the visit: conservative treatment and imaging review. Patients who were indicated for surgical treatment from these two groups were identi- fied to assess their compliance with the surgical indication. The effective- ness was measured by assessing whether patients required an in-person visit before the scheduled follow-up after the telemedicine visit for further medical assessment. Fifty (30.7%) men and 113 (69.3%) women had a telemedicine visit during the 6-month period. The mean age was 43.68 (+/- 16.95) years. There were 92 (56.4%) patients in the presurgical group, of whom 41% followed up after indication for conservative treatment and 59% visited to review imaging. From these groups, 27% were indicated for surgical treatment. The postsurgical group contained 71 (43.6%) patients, divided into three groups based on their surgery date: 0 to 3 months (27%), 4 to 12 months (59%), and more than 12 months (14%). All patients were compliant with the scheduled follow-up after their telemedicine visit. This study showed that telemedicine can be an effective tool for patient-physi- cian communication, obviating the need for subsequent follow-up beyond regularly scheduled visits. [Orthopedics. 2023;46(3):e173-e178.]