ArticleSurgical endoscopy2022
The impact of socioeconomic status on telemedicine utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic among surgical clinics at an academic tertiary care center.
Article in Surgical endoscopy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Acceptability of Teleconsultation Services for HIV Care in Nigeria: A Mixed Methods Study.Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association · 2025Article
- Telemedicine Use Among Older Adults During COVID-19: A Narrative Literature Review of Utilization Patterns.Telemedicine reports · 2025Review
- Health Care Usage During the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Adoption of Telemedicine: Retrospective Study of Chronic Disease Cohorts.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Adoption and Use of Telemedicine and Digital Health Services Among Older Adults in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Repeated Cross-Sectional Analysis.JMIR aging · 2024Article
- Telemedicine Use Decreases the Carbon Footprint of the Bariatric Surgery Preoperative Evaluation.Obesity surgery · 2023Article
- The environmental impact of surgical telemedicine: life cycle assessment of virtual vs. in-person preoperative evaluations for benign foregut disease.Surgical endoscopy · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic caused many surgical providers to conduct outpatient evaluations using remote audiovisual conferencing technology (i.e., telemedicine) for the first time in 2020. We describe our year-long institutional experience with telemedicine in several general surgery clinics at an academic tertiary care center and examine the relationship between area-based socioeconomic measures and the likelihood of telemedicine participation.
methodsWe performed a retrospective review of our outpatient telemedicine utilization among four subspecialty clinics (including two acute care and two elective surgery clinics). Geocoding was used to link patient visit data to area-based socioeconomic measures and a multivariable analysis was performed to examine the relationship between socioeconomic indicators and patient participation in telemedicine.
resultsWhile total outpatient visits per month reached a nadir in April 2020 (65% decrease in patient visits when compared to January 2020), there was a sharp increase in telemedicine utilization during the same month (38% of all visits compared to 0.8% of all visits in the month prior). Higher rates of telemedicine utilization were observed in the two elective surgery clinics (61% and 54%) compared to the two acute care surgery clinics (14% and 9%). A multivariable analysis demonstrated a borderline-significant linear trend (p = 0.07) between decreasing socioeconomic status and decreasing odds of telemedicine participation among elective surgery visits. A sensitivity analysis to examine the reliability of this trend showed similar results.
conclusionTelemedicine has many patient-centered benefits, and this study demonstrates that for certain elective subspecialty clinics, telemedicine may be utilized as the preferred method for surgical consultations. However, to ensure the equitable adoption and advancement of telemedicine services, healthcare providers will need to focus on mitigating the socioeconomic barriers to telemedicine participation.
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