Virtual Care With Nonusual Physician Tied to More Emergency Visits
By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 27, 2023 -- Virtual care with an outside physician is associated with more emergency department visits, compared with virtual visits with a regular care physician, according to a study published online Dec. 27 in JAMA Network Open.
Lauren Lapointe-Shaw, M.D., Ph.D., from University Health Network in Toronto, and colleagues investigated whether there was a difference in subsequent emergency department use between patients who had a virtual visit with their own family physician versus those who had virtual visits with an outside physician. The analysis included 5.2 million individuals with a family physician and virtual visit (April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022).
The researchers found that when propensity score matching those with a personal versus outside physician, those who saw an outside physician were 66 percent more likely to visit an emergency department within seven days of the virtual visit versus those who virtually saw their own physician (3.3 versus 2.0 percent; risk difference, 1.3 percent; relative risk, 1.66). The risk was even greater for patients with definite direct-to-consumer telemedicine visits versus patients with own physician visits (risk difference, 4.1 percent; relative risk, 2.99).
"These findings suggest that primary care virtual visits may be best used within an existing clinical relationship," the authors write.
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
© 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Posted December 2023
Read this next
Large Language Models May Aid Emergency Department Triage
TUESDAY, May 14, 2024 -- Large language models (LLMs) could enhance emergency department triage workflows, according to a study published online May 7 in JAMA Network...
Neighborhood Inequity Tied to More People Living With Vision Difficulty, Blindness
TUESDAY, May 14, 2024 -- Residential measures of inequity are associated with a greater number of individuals living with vision difficulty and blindness (VDB), according to a...
Elite Running Tied to Longer Life Expectancy
TUESDAY, May 14, 2024 -- Sub-four-minute mile runners have greater longevity than the general population, with results dating back as far as the 1950s, according to a study...
More news resources
- FDA Medwatch Drug Alerts
- Daily MedNews
- News for Health Professionals
- New Drug Approvals
- New Drug Applications
- Drug Shortages
- Clinical Trial Results
- Generic Drug Approvals
Subscribe to our newsletter
Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.