Surgery may seem like the ultimate telehealth-proof medical discipline. After all, a surgical team can't operate on someone over a video connection. But what about the appointments that patients have in their surgeon's office weeks before and after their operations? A new study shows that most surgeons aren't ready to meet their patients virtually for pre-op appointments, even if the patients have had all the necessary tests, imaging scans and measurements that inform surgeons' decisions.
However, half of surgeons are open to converting some of their post-op appointments to telehealth visits, the study finds. The findings, published in the journal Surgery by a team from Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan's academic medical center, suggest many surgeons see too many barriers to converting more of their office visits to virtual care. Except urologists.
In fact, 88% of the urologists who responded to the survey said they use telehealth with at least some patients, and a third use it for 5% of their patient care or more. The percentages were much lower for surgeons in other fields and overall. The study is the first major survey of telehealth attitudes among surgeons, and the first to compare telehealth views across multiple surgical specialties.
Although the 170 surgeons who completed the survey are only a small fraction of tens of thousands currently practicing, the study's authors suggest the results could help inform clinic and hospital administrators as well as su.