35185 Impact of telehealth on duration of tetracycline prescription during COVID-19

Abstract

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused more dermatology providers than ever before to turn to telemedicine and virtual visits to safely arrange clinic appointments during lockdowns. Doxycycline and minocycline are two commonly used tetracycline antibiotics that are frequently prescribed by dermatologists for their effective anti-inflammatory properties and good safety profile. This study aimed to evaluate whether virtual visits during COVID-19 impacted duration of doxycycline prescription and determine whether provider type (physician assistant, resident, fellow, or staff attending) affected duration of doxycycline prescription. A retrospective cohort was designed using all documented pharmaceutical prescriptions of doxycycline in 2019 and 2020 prescribed by dermatology providers at the University of Iowa Hospitals. Preliminary results show an overall increase in telemedicine visits from 13.73%, in 2019 compared with 38.13% in 2020 (P < .0001). Analysis also demonstrates that only 25.42% of total in-person dermatology visits resulted in a doxycycline prescription of less than 31 days vs. 47.49% of total virtual visits (P < .0001). However, despite demonstrated increase in virtual visits in 2020, year did not seem to play a factor in the duration of antibiotic prescription with instances of duration being almost equal between 2019 and 2020 (P < .0001). In this era of increasing telehealth, the demonstrated decrease in duration of doxycycline prescription in virtual visits is perhaps indicative of increased accessibility afforded by teledermatology. Future studies might explore factors related to provider decision-making in virtual visits compared with in-person visits and holds implications for how televisits may play an increasingly greater role in acne management.