P1016 - Provider satisfaction with rapid rollout of a new telehealth program at a pediatric subspecialty group practice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: The national emergency response to the COVID-19 outbreak prompted our practice to rapidly develop and deploy a telehealth program. The goal was to continue to meet the healthcare needs of our patients in a safe and efficient manner. Our practice has 117 providers from 23 pediatric subspecialties and a total staff of 313. Our planning and implementation of the telehealth program started shortly after the declaration of a state of emergency by our Governor on March 12th and was piloted within two weeks. To ensure a timely rollout, we utilized an external video conferencing platform which was independent of the electronic medical record. Because of this we were able to see 4660 patients (155/day) via telehealth in the month of April 2020; this compares to 0 telehealth visits and 8799 in-person clinic visits (293 /day) in April 2019. The in-person visit to telehealth conversion rate was 52%.

Objective: We developed a survey to seek feedback from providers regarding their experience with the telehealth initiative.

Methods: An electronic survey was sent to 108 providers. It included 9 questions to measure provider satisfaction using a 5-point Likert scale format and a section to comment on challenges faced. Questions were designed to assess provider satisfaction in the following areas: efficiency of converting appointments to telehealth, training, technical support, software user-friendliness, interpreter incorporation, operational workflow, and overall visit quality.

Results: Fifty two providers responded to the survey with a response rate of 48%. 92% of providers were satisfied with the visit quality and 83% with the efficiency of converting appointments to telehealth. 90% were satisfied with record accessibility and 89% with ordering tests and labs. 75% were satisfied with operational workflow outside the visit. From a technologic perspective the satisfaction was: 80% with technical support, 96% with training received and 100% with software user-friendliness. 68% were satisfied with ease of using interpreters. Several challenges were identified in the comments section including need for improved patient education regarding video software, training for support staff, and issues accessing interpreter services. A few felt that telehealth was not a substitute for in-person visits. Some expressed exhaustion with continuous telehealth visits. Concern was expressed by a few regarding some families’ inability to access telehealth. Many expressed interest in continuing telehealth long-term.

Conclusion: Majority of the providers approved of the telehealth program. The survey feedback provided actionable information to identify issues and find solutions in a timely manner. More exploration is needed to determine long-term sustainability of our telehealth program. Efforts should emphasize reducing provider burnout. Specialty services should think of ways to balance in-person and telehealth services to provide equitable care to patients. We hope our findings will help guide others in launching or improving telehealth programs.