Online consultation in the COVID epoch in India: Experience of 1597 appointments – new order cometh

Abstract

Introduction: Online consultation is the latest challenge in clinical medicine during the COVID pandemic. We utilized our preexisting electronic medical record, video calling, and online payment for online consultation. Methodology: Consultations between April 15, 2020, and July 31, 2020, were compared with a similar period in 2019 to see the change in the pattern of consultation. Results: Between April 15, 2020, and July 31, 2020, there were a total of 1597 appointments compared to 2945 in the previous year a 45% fall in 2020. In the current model, all patients had to compulsorily have an online consultation. Online consultation was first done for 1130 patients, of whom 396 had a physical consultation in the clinic. There were no online consultations in the previous year. The real-world problems with online consultations and how they were overcome are discussed. Analyzing the data month wise, there was a progressive increase in the appointments this year indicating better acceptance for online consultation increasing from 350 appointments in May to 628 in July 2020, which translated into 40% and 70% of 2019 appointments indicating better acceptance over time. Cancellations were 5.2% for online consultation and 2.2% for physical consultation in the clinic. The reasons for cancellations were also analyzed and the most common causes were inability to reach the patient on mobile and blood pressure not recordable nearby. 0.7% had to make an emergency visit before they could complete an online consultation. Conclusions: Simple method of online consultation can be implemented in any clinic. No special app is required. The number of patients undergoing consultation is increasing with every passing month. This should be a motivation for more physicians to start online consultation during the COVID Epoch.