TY - JOUR T1 - A comparison of in-person versus telephone consultations for outpatient hospital care JF - Future Healthcare Journal JO - Future Healthc J DO - 10.7861/fhj.2022-0006 SP - fhj.2022-0006 AU - Rebecca L Crook AU - Hina Iftikhar AU - Steven Moore AU - Phillipa Lowdon AU - Pedram Modarres AU - Simon Message Y1 - 2022/05/06 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/early/2022/05/05/fhj.2022-0006.abstract N2 - The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has triggered a transition towards telemedicine for delivering outpatient care. The evidence base for telemedicine is heterogeneous and its efficacy remains debated. We, therefore, designed a mixed-methods semi-structured survey to evaluate patients' and clinicians' experiences of outpatient telemedicine clinics during the pandemic. One-hundred and eighty-eight patients and 69 clinicians from two hospitals in Gloucestershire completed the survey. The quantitative results for patients rated in-person and telemedicine appointments similarly in all areas except communication (p<0.001) and overall quality (p=0.004), both in favour of in-person consultations, while clinicians rated all aspects of telemedicine appointments as inferior, with the exception of convenience (p=0.643). Qualitative analysis highlighted themes of communication and relationship building difficulties, confidentiality concerns, loss of visual inspection as a clinical tool and debatable time efficiency associated with telemedicine. Significant adaptation of current telemedicine services is required before it will be integrated into current practice. ER -