• Sammy Le and Arun Aggarwal.
• Concord Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
• Intern Med J. 2021 Jul 1; 51 (7): 1043-1048.

BackgroundPatients with chronic disease in rural and remote regions endure limited access to specialised medicine. Telehealth has addressed this issue with demonstrable benefits such as a reduction in costs to patients.AimsTo explore the patient satisfaction of telehealth in Australia.MethodsPatients from all around Australia, including Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Australian Capital Territory and even Western Australia were referred to a Sydney-based neurologist. After their initial face to face consultation, review consultations were performed by telehealth. All had chronic diseases (trigeminal neuralgia, facial pain or Parkinson disease) and received a standardised questionnaire comprising of demographics, satisfaction of technical aspects and quality of the consultation. The questionnaires were administered by the Practice Manager to remove observer bias.ResultsTwenty-nine patient questionnaires were completed by 13 patients who had follow-up telehealth consultations. One hundred per cent of patients reported satisfaction with the overall telehealth experience and would use it again. All were satisfied with the specialist and the privacy. The majority were satisfied with the voice quality (86%), visual quality (79%), ease of connectivity (93%) and length of the consultation (97%). In total, they saved nearly $17 000 in travel costs and on average, each patient avoided 937 km and saved $550.ConclusionTelehealth has proven to have multiple advantages, including improved access to healthcare, decreased costs, reduced inconvenience and improved management of chronic and complex conditions. The positive results advocate the use of telehealth for follow up of rural and remote patients with chronic disease.© 2020 Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

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