eConculta: Impact of Virtual Visits in Primary Care (eConsulta)

Institut Catala de Salut

Status: Completed

Conditions: Adult

Treatments: Other: eConsulta

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01124968

eConsulta

Details and patient eligibility

About

eConsulta is a before and after quasi-experimental study without control group and its purpose is to asses the impact of virtual visits in primary care on the frequency of attendance of the patients to the primary care centre. The use of virtual consultations should lower the number of face to face visits to primary care. It also should create satisfaction to both users: primary care professionals and patients.

Full description

Excess on primary care face to face demands generates a work overload for the professionals, and it could lead to a lower quality of care and less job satisfaction. Not all primary care demands need a face to face encounter so incorporating new technologies into daily practice care such as communication doctor/nurse-patient through a website could be part of the solution. So we designed a study in order to assess the impact of the use of virtual consultation on frequency of attendance and the satisfaction of patients and professionals with the service.

It is a before after quasi-experimental multi-centre study with no control group. Agreed voluntarily to participate 13 primary care centres, 20 primary care physicians, 17 nurses them having 16.720 reference adult patients. We designed a website where participants can access the internet and consult their doctor/nurse, who will answer within 48 hours at maximum. The intervention will last 6 months.

We believe that the site can be useful by both patient and professional. For some types of patient, the use of the site may increase its accessibility, reduce face to face consultations and improve satisfaction, while the professional makes a more efficient practice.

Enrollment: 16,720 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 18 years or over
• having a primary care centre assigned
• to have both physician and nurse participating in the project
• to use the same electronic clinical recording software

Exclusion criteria

• none

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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16,720 participants in 1 patient group

eConsulta

Experimental group

Description:

Those patients who are offered to use the eConsulta, a web where they can virtually consult with their primary care doctor or nurse.

Treatment:

Other: eConsulta