title: Patient adherence to recommendations after teleconsultation: survey of patients from a telemedicine centre in Switzerland.
abstract: We investigated patients' adherence to recommendations after telephone triage at the Swiss Centre for Telemedicine. We studied cases where the medical problem was assessed as not requiring an immediate face-to-face consultation. Two weeks after teleconsultation, follow-up telephone interviews were conducted with 1129 self-care patients. The patients were asked if they had adhered to the telephone recommendations and whether they had had a subsequent face-to-face consultation. A total of 1003 patients (88%) were available for the follow-up telephone interview. Of those, 85% reported that they had adhered to all self-care recommendations and 86% had followed the advice about further use of the health-care system. Overall, 28% of patients had attended a face-to-face consultation. Half of them were referred by the teleconsultation centre, and half of them had decided themselves not to follow the centre's recommendation. Since acceptance of self-care recommendations after teleconsultation was high, teleconsultation may be an efficient alternative to face-to-face consultations for some conditions.
authors.affiliation: Swiss Centre for Telemedicine, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Timo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Rimner
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Blozik
authors.forename: Chantal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Begley
authors.forename: Chantal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Grandchamp
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: von Overbeck
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D019114:Remote Consultation / Q000379:methods*; D057566:Self Report / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013557:Switzerland; D014218:Triage; D055815:Young Adult