Clinician and Caregiver Experience of Telehealth During COVID‐19 Pandemic Supports Future Use

Increased telehealth uptake and integration into mainstream practice has been recognised as an unexpected silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic.1 A recent Nature Medicine publication has indicated that telehealth is here to stay.1 In response to the surge in outpatient telehealth appointments at Perth Children's Hospital (PCH) from the onset of the pandemic (March 2020), we audited caregiver and clinician experience with outpatient telehealth and telephone appointments to inform future outpatient service provision. All general paediatricians conducting outpatient clinics over a 2-week period in May 2020 were invited to complete an online questionnaire of their experience using telehealth and telephone modalities. Caregivers of children attending a face-to-face, telephone or telehealth general paediatric outpatient appointment over a 3-week period in May–June 2020 were sent an online questionnaire via text message. Respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with certain statements, using a Likert scale, with a free text option inviting further comments. Response rates of 85% (17/20) for clinicians and 23% (59/255) for caregivers were obtained (Table 1). All clinicians and caregivers who had utilised telehealth considered it very or somewhat convenient (100%, n = 15 and n = 11, respectively). In comparison, fewer caregivers found their face-to-face appointments convenient (29/34, 85%). Although most clinicians (86%) indicated that they would like to continue with telehealth use, it was not always considered the most appropriate consultation modality. Most clinicians (10/15, 67%) did not feel that telehealth appointments were appropriate for new patient consultations, with some clinicians using the free text option to indicate that this was due to the inability to conduct physical examination. However, all clinicians agreed they would consider using telehealth or telephone consultations following their initial face-to-face appointment. Of note, most caregivers described feeling safe with all appointment modalities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, fewer clinicians reported feeling safe providing face-to-face appointments (7/15, 47%) and the majority reported feeling safer with telephone (14/16,88%) and telehealth appointments (11/15, 74%). While sample size for caregiver responses was small and may be subject to bias, the responses were consistently supportive of ongoing telehealth services from a caregiver's perspective. Clinician responses support the use of telehealth for some appointments and support its use in appropriately select settings. Our organisation will continue to utilise and promote telehealth as a valuable additional modality option for future patient care. The authors thank the following: responding clinicians working within the Department of General Paediatrics at PCH, responding caregivers and telehealth team at PCH.