The Association of Medical Preoperative Evaluation Using Clinical Video Telehealth With Hospital Length of Stay: Descriptive Analysis

Brittany Nicole Burton; Sara Arastoo; Simon Wu; Nancy Liu; Michael K Ong; Sondra Vazirani

doi:10.2196/38054

The Association of Medical Preoperative Evaluation Using Clinical Video Telehealth With Hospital Length of Stay: Descriptive Analysis

JMIR Form Res. 2022 Jul 25;6(7):e38054. doi: 10.2196/38054.

Authors

Brittany Nicole Burton¹, Sara Arastoo¹, Simon Wu², Nancy Liu², Michael K Ong², Sondra Vazirani²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, University of California Los Angeles Health, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
² Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

PMID: 35877170
PMCID: PMC9361140
DOI: 10.2196/38054

Abstract

Background: Preoperative medical evaluation serves to identify risk factors and optimize patients before surgery. Providing a telehealth option in the perioperative setting has played a significant role in reducing barriers to quality perioperative health care.

Objective: We aimed to evaluate how telemedicine preoperative evaluations using Clinical Video Telehealth (CVT) impact hospital length of stay.

Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review between 2016 and 2017 of adult patients who underwent evaluations in our hospitalist-run preoperative medicine clinic. Patients seen in our preoperative CVT program were compared to patients seen in person to evaluate the association of visit type (preoperative CVT versus in-person evaluation) with hospital length of stay, defined as hospital stay from postoperative day 0 to discharge. There were 62 patients included in this retrospective study.

Results: The adjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) for hospital length of stay was significantly shorter in patients who underwent preoperative CVT compared to an in-person visit (IRR 0.52, 95% CI 0.29-0.92, P=.02).

Conclusions: After adjusting for age and comorbidities, we show that preoperative telemedicine in the perioperative setting is associated with a shorter hospital length of stay compared to in-person visits. This suggests that telemedicine can play a viable role in this clinical setting.

Keywords: chart review; clinical care; digital health; discharge; eHealth; effectiveness; efficacy; hospital; length of stay; outpatient; preoperative; retrospective; telehealth; telemedicine; veteran; veteran's health; video.

©Brittany Nicole Burton, Sara Arastoo, Simon Wu, Nancy Liu, Michael K Ong, Sondra Vazirani. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 25.07.2022.