Ensuring Quality in the Era of Virtual Care VIEWPOINT
Opinion Ensuring Quality in the Era of Virtual Care VIEWPOINT Kurt R. Herzer, MD, The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, However, there is limited high-quality evidence that PhD, MSc aided by a relaxation in federal telemedicine regulations, virtual primary care does not harm patients, such as Johns Hopkins School has ushered in a new era of virtual care. Physicians and through misdiagnosis, and achieves the same or better of Medicine, Baltimore, patients have substantially increased their adoption clinical outcomes as traditional care.4 Clinical practice Maryland. and use of virtual care. According to one report, an esti- guidelines, which presuppose a conventional in-office Peter J. Pronovost, mated1.6milliontelemedicinevisitswereconductedearly visit—supportedbyaphysicalexamination,objectivemea- MD, PhD in the pandemic, between January and March 2020, rep- surementofclinicaldata,equipment,andteamworkcom- University Hospitals, resenting approximately 50% more telemedicine visits mon to the office setting, may not generalize to the vir- Case Western Reserve than occurred in the same period in 2019.1 Based on ag- tual setting. Early evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic University School of Medicine, Cleveland, gregated payer data covering 150 million privately in- based on an analysis of 125.8 million primary care visits Ohio. sured individuals in the US, by April 2020 telemedicine suggests that assessment of blood pressure declined by visits accounted for 13% of all medical claims compared 37% (from 74.4% of all primary care
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