582 A Survey of Burn Care Providers Regarding the Utility of Telehealth to Provide Outpatient Burn Care

Abstract

IntroductionTelehealth is purported to be the wave of the future, offering improved access to care by overcoming geographical and other logistical challenges while simultaneously improving efficiencies within the healthcare system. As the global COVID-19 pandemic swept through our state, we were abruptly forced to take our burn clinic to a telehealth platform for most patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate our experience with telehealth in managing burn wounds and other complex skin defects.MethodsA 16-item survey was developed using the framework outlined by the National Quality Forum for the development of telehealth measures. The survey was distributed to direct care providers and focused on the domains of experience and effectiveness and the subdomains of efficiency and satisfaction.ResultsThere were a total of 14 respondents, including physicians, allied healthcare professionals, therapists and nurses. Seventy-seven percent of participants felt that overall, the system was efficient in the 4 categories of time required for scheduling, check-in, visit conduct and care coordination. Telehealth was deemed moderately to very effective by 80% in providing the patient access to care and the provider’s ability to educate the patient. However, providers, therapists and nurses uniformly found telehealth to be either not at all effective or slightly effective in assessing wounds, musculoskeletal function and developing a plan of care. When rating satisfaction with connectivity and overall quality of the clinic visit 70% of respondents were either dissatisfied/neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the platform.ConclusionsThe operational aspects of our burn clinic telehealth program implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic were found to be largely satisfactory, with the exception of connectivity issues. However, the clinical aspects of the program were found to be largely unsatisfactory and, notably, were judged to be inferior to in-person visits.