@Article{info:doi/10.2196/38054,
author="Burton, Brittany Nicole
and Arastoo, Sara
and Wu, Simon
and Liu, Nancy
and Ong, Michael K
and Vazirani, Sondra",
title="The Association of Medical Preoperative Evaluation Using Clinical Video Telehealth With Hospital Length of Stay: Descriptive Analysis",
journal="JMIR Form Res",
year="2022",
month="Jul",
day="25",
volume="6",
number="7",
pages="e38054",
keywords="telemedicine; telehealth; eHealth; digital health; hospital; length of stay; veteran's health; video; veteran; preoperative; outpatient; chart review; retrospective; clinical care; effectiveness; efficacy; discharge",
abstract="Background: Preoperative medical evaluation serves to identify risk factors and optimize patients before surgery. Providing a telehealth option in the perioperative setting has played a significant role in reducing barriers to quality perioperative health care. Objective: We aimed to evaluate how telemedicine preoperative evaluations using Clinical Video Telehealth (CVT) impact hospital length of stay. Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review between 2016 and 2017 of adult patients who underwent evaluations in our hospitalist-run preoperative medicine clinic. Patients seen in our preoperative CVT program were compared to patients seen in person to evaluate the association of visit type (preoperative CVT versus in-person evaluation) with hospital length of stay, defined as hospital stay from postoperative day 0 to discharge. There were 62 patients included in this retrospective study. Results: The adjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) for hospital length of stay was significantly shorter in patients who underwent preoperative CVT compared to an in-person visit (IRR 0.52, 95{\%} CI 0.29-0.92, P=.02). Conclusions: After adjusting for age and comorbidities, we show that preoperative telemedicine in the perioperative setting is associated with a shorter hospital length of stay compared to in-person visits. This suggests that telemedicine can play a viable role in this clinical setting. ",
issn="2561-326X",
doi="10.2196/38054",
url="https://formative.jmir.org/2022/7/e38054",
url="https://doi.org/10.2196/38054",
url="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35877170"
}