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. 2024 Apr;30(3):543-548.
doi: 10.1177/1357633X211073428. Epub 2022 Feb 2.

Changes in telemedicine use and ambulatory visit volumes at a multispecialty cardiovascular center during the COVID-19 pandemic

Neil M Kalwani  1   2 , Esli Osmanlliu  3 , Vijaya Parameswaran  1 , Lubna Qureshi  4 , Rajesh Dash  1 , Paul A Heidenreich  1   5 , David Scheinker  6   7   8 , Fatima Rodriguez  1
Affiliations

Changes in telemedicine use and ambulatory visit volumes at a multispecialty cardiovascular center during the COVID-19 pandemic

Neil M Kalwani et al. J Telemed Telecare. 2024 Apr.

Abstract

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, cardiology clinics rapidly implemented telemedicine to maintain access to care. Little is known about subsequent trends in telemedicine use and visit volumes across cardiology subspecialties. We conducted a retrospective cohort study including all patients with ambulatory visits at a multispecialty cardiovascular center in Northern California from March 2019 to February 2020 (pre-COVID) and March 2020 to February 2021 (COVID). Telemedicine use increased from 3.5% of visits (1200/33,976) during the pre-COVID period to 63.0% (21,251/33,706) during the COVID period. Visit volumes were below pre-COVID levels from March to May 2020 but exceeded pre-COVID levels after June 2020, including when local COVID-19 cases peaked. Telemedicine use was above 75% of visits in all cardiology subspecialties in April 2020 and stabilized at rates ranging from over 95% in electrophysiology to under 25% in heart transplant and vascular medicine. From June 2020 to February 2021, subspecialties delivering a greater percentage of visits through telemedicine experienced larger increases in new patient visits (r = 0.81, p = 0.029). Telemedicine can be used to deliver a significant proportion of outpatient cardiovascular care though utilization varies across subspecialties. Higher rates of telemedicine adoption may increase access to care in cardiology clinics.

Keywords: COVID-19; Telecardiology; cardiovascular disease; telehealth; telemedicine.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: FR reports consulting fees from Novartis, Janssen, NovoNordisk, and HealthPals outside the submitted work. RD reports research funding from Bayer AG and consulting fees from HealthPals outside the submitted work.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Monthly outpatient cardiology visits by visit modality during the COVID period. (A) New patient visits. (B) Return patient visits.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Telemedicine use across cardiology subspecialties during the COVID period. (A) Percentage of monthly outpatient visits delivered by telemedicine. (B) Percentage of new patient visits delivered by telemedicine from June 2020 to February 2021 and percentage change in new patient visit volumes compared to the previous year. The size of each circle represents the number of new patient visits for each subspecialty.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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