DescriptionBackground: Patient satisfaction is an important component of every visit to the provider. Patients equate their satisfaction based on the quality of the visit that is received. Before the Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing laws that reduced barriers to telehealth reimbursements, the in-office visit was the main mode of patient service. Now telehealth has become widely used in clinics. Telehealth uses telecommunication methods to enable patient and provider interaction. With the continued use of telehealth, patients want the same type of quality care that they receive in an in-office visit. The purpose of this quality improvement study is to determine if patients will find telehealth visits at a private clinic as satisfying as their traditional in-office visit and if they would like to continue to use telehealth as an added method of patient service.
Method: The research utilized the Plan-Do-Study-Act model incorporated into a quality improvement project. Patient satisfaction was measured by using anonymous online questionnaires on a 5-point Likert scale over twelve weeks. The study sample comprised 78 adult patients.
Results: N=78 completed the survey questions, Majority 69.5% preferred in-office visits in almost all outcomes. Overall, patients were significantly more satisfied with the overall quality of in-office compared to telehealth visits.
Conclusion and Implication: This study revealed more satisfaction with in-office visits in the measured outcomes. Although responses in willingness to continue with telehealth after the pandemic were not statistically significant but were favorable to one-half of patients. This shows that patients may be willing to use telehealth in addition to in-office. The implications for this study are that telehealth in addition to In-office visits, can improve access to healthcare, provide quality and safe healthcare needs. It can be cost-beneficial to patients who may not be able to visit the clinic to maintain continued care.