Telemedical anesthesia consent - Are the patients ready for it? : Acomparative requirement analysis before and during the pandemic

Abstract

Comprehensive anesthesia preparation by means of the anamnesis and physical examination is considered an essential part of the quality criteria for anesthesia. Especially due to the shortage of specialists, there are usually long waiting times in anesthesia outpatient departments and patients must frequently return in cases of missing or pending findings. Telemedicine already offers alternatives in the context of video communication. These alternatives are now particularly prominent due to the currently existing COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting recommendations for digitalization. This comparative cross-sectional study was carried out to show via apatient survey which patient groups are suitable for atelemedical anesthesia preparation and whether the patients are already technically sufficiently equipped. For this purpose, atotal of 2080 patients (1030 before and 1050 during the pandemic) were interviewed using aquestionnaire. For matched paired analyses, 630 pairs were formed according to their age and gender. Before and after the pandemic, there was an increase in the percentage of patients already using video communication in their daily lives (30.4% vs. 41.8%). Before the pandemic, 31.7% of patients indicated that they considered this concept of communication to be apractical and appropriate method for an educational conversation and after the pandemic this number increased to 46.6%. For the majority of patients personal contact with alocal anesthesiologist was important (80.7% before vs. 67.4% during the pandemic). The number of patients who had the necessary technical equipment for video communication also increased as aresult of the COVID-19 pandemic (50.4% vs. 58.2%). Almost half of the patients already seem to be open to atelemedical preoperative evaluation. As digitalization progresses, older generations are more likely to recognize the benefits and be able to own and use the necessary technology in the near future. User acceptance should be the central goal of concept development. This must be followed by arandomized controlled study to evaluate the potentials but also the problems in the perioperative process.