A Bump in the Road for Telehealth?

Maybe.

A new study suggests that telehealth follow-up may not be ideal after a visit to the hospital emergency department.

According to a study based on a very limited scope of ED cases,

… telehealth follow-up was associated with 28.3 more repeated ED encounters and 10.6 more return hospital admissions per 1000 patients compared with in-person follow-up.

Further,

… telehealth follow-up visits after ED encounters were associated with higher rates of repeated hospital visits even after controlling for presentation acuity, comorbidities, and sociodemographic factors.

Learn more about how the study was conducted and what it found in the JAMA Network article “Association Between In-Person vs Telehealth Follow-up and Rates of Repeated Hospital Visits Among Patients Seen in the Emergency Department.”