PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Rae-Anne Hardie
AU  - Gorkem Sezgin
AU  - Chisato Imai
AU  - Emma Gault
AU  - Precious McGuire
AU  - Muhammad Kashif Sheikh
AU  - Christopher Pearce
AU  - Tony Badrick
AU  - Andrew Georgiou
TI  - Telehealth-based diagnostic testing in general practice during the COVID-19 pandemic: an observational study
AID  - 10.3399/BJGPO.2021.0123
DP  - 2022 Mar 01
TA  - BJGP Open
PG  - BJGPO.2021.0123
VI  - 6
IP  - 1
4099  - http://bjgpopen.org/content/6/1/BJGPO.2021.0123.short
4100  - http://bjgpopen.org/content/6/1/BJGPO.2021.0123.full
SO  - BJGP Open2022 Mar 01; 6
AB  - Background Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020, health technologies have been rapidly scaled up to ensure access to care. A significant innovation has been telehealth in general practice. Now widespread, it remains unknown how this shift to virtual care has impacted on quality-of-care indicators such as pathology testing and diagnosis.Aim To undertake a comparison of telehealth and face-to-face general practice consultations to: identify if there were differences in the proportion of pathology test referrals from 2019–2020; and quantify any change in pathology test collection and follow-up patterns.Design & setting Retrospective observational study of routinely collected electronic patient data from 807 general practices across New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, Australia.Method Multivariate generalised estimating equation models were used to estimate the proportion of pathology test referrals for overall, face-to-face, and telehealth consultations. Pathology test follow-up was described through median (and interquartile range [IQR]) time.Results Pathology test referrals declined during periods of high COVID-19 cases, falling from 10.8% in February 2020 to a low of 4.5% during the first peak in April. Overall, pathology test referrals were lower for telehealth than face-to-face consultations. Median time between referral and test collection was 3 days (IQR 1–14) for telehealth and 1 day (IQR 0–7) for face to face.Conclusion For telehealth to become part of routine care, it is crucial that gaps in functionality, including difficulty in test referral processes, be addressed. Quality improvements supporting care practices will ensure clinicians’ workflows are supported and patients receive diagnostic testing.