461 The Utility of Remote Video Technology in Continuing Neurosurgical Care in the COVID-19 Era: Reflections From the Past Year

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic exposed existing stressors in the neurosurgical care infrastructure in the United States. METHODS: Several distance-health and audio-visual innovations were implemented that expanded neurosurgical care and education at our institution, including use of remote video technology to facilitate inpatient consultations and outpatient ambulatory virtual visits, optimize our regional hospital neurosurgical coverage, expand our interdisciplinary patient management conferences (i.e. Tumor Board), and further enhance our neurosurgical resident education program. Enterprise patient-experience data was queried for outpatient visits in the department of neurosurgery to evaluate patient satisfaction following the switch to virtual visits. RESULTS: Between January of 2020 and April of 2021 our department of Neurosurgery more than doubled the utilization of virtual visit following pandemic restrictions.Our survey of 10,772 patient following outpatient visits between April 2020 and March 2021 showed that virtual visitation was equal if not better in providing satisfactory and compassionate patient care. Further, after switching our interdisciplinary spine tumor board to virtual, we increased surgeon participation and attendance by 49.29%. We also found that the integration of remote audio-visual technology in resident didactics and clinical training expanded our ability to provide a comprehensive and personalized educational experience for our trainees. CONCLUSION: Distance-health technology has improved our ability to provide care and comprehensive training at our institution. Our investment in the infrastructure required for these remote audio-visual services during the pandemic can facilitate the expansion of neurosurgical care provision for patients across the United States in the future. As we progress, governing bodies within organized neurosurgery should advocate for the continued financial and licensing support of theses service on a national fiscal and policy level.