Abstract

Telemedicine serves millions of patients and is transforming healthcare delivery worldwide. In October of 2015, Nemours Children's Health System began offering direct-to-consumer (DTC) pediatric telemedicine on the Nemours CareConnect (NCC) platform. Currently, there are no descriptive data available on pediatric-specific DTC 24/7 programs. This is the first article to our knowledge that provides data on such a program. A retrospective data analysis of the first 1,000 visits was conducted. All patient data were precollected and deidentified. NCC was accessed for skin-related concerns (18.7%), upper respiratory symptoms (17.5%), fever (15.2%), and gastrointestinal issues (9.7%) most often on Saturdays and Sundays. Patients' ages ranged from 2 weeks to 20 years with the median age of 4 years. The peak time of call was between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM. Median visit wait time was 2 min 11 s and median treatment time was 12 min 10 s. Patients rated providers and the NCC platform using a 5-star rating system. Over 93% of patients rated providers 5 stars and 86.0% rated the NCC platform 5 stars. Sixty-seven percent of parents reported they would have accessed an urgent care center, emergency room, or retail clinic if NCC were not available. NCC provides accessible, efficient care and parents are satisfied with the service. The postvisit survey suggested parents would have sought more expensive care if NCC were not available. NCC provided descriptive data using an audiovisual model. NCC warrants further investigation in regard to redirection of services.

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