Is Telehealth Prescribing Effective

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Can a doctor who sees his patient on a screen only appropriately prescribe medications? A study published by JAMA International Medicine says it’s possible.

Are doctors’ prescribing habits the same in a virtual visit as in the office? According to researchers from RAND, they are similar. Rand suggests antibiotics are prescribed just as often during telemedicine visits as office visits.

In a study published inJAMA International Medicine, RAND researchers analyzed data from 1,700 patients who had phone or video consultations through Teladoc, and about 64,000 patients who had face-to-face visits with physicians. “The pattern of treatment offeredto patients who saw a physician face-to-face versus those who spoke with a physician on the telephone was not substantially different,” said Lori Uscher-Pines, the study's lead author and a policy researcher at RAND in a press release.“However, we found the antibiotics prescribed during telemedicine 'visits' raised some specific quality concerns that requirefurther attention.”

mHealth News explains researchers found that, while both types of visits yielded roughly the same percentage of prescriptions, virtual visits resulted in a broader spectrum of antibiotic prescriptions and office visits resulted in more targeted drug prescriptions.

More specifically, iHealth Beat reports, patients who received consultations viaTeladoc were prescribed antibiotics about 58 percent of the time, compared with about 55 percent of the time for those who had in-person appointments. Telehealth doctors prescribed broad-spectrum drugs 86 percent of the time they prescribed antibiotics, compared with 56 percentof the time for doctors who treated patients face-to-face.

“The results suggest that telemedicine providers should consider quality-improvement initiatives to change physicians behavior, aswell as direct education to patients to influence demand for unnecessary antibiotics,” said researchers.