Video vs Telephone Consultations for Pediatric Quality of Care in Emergency Departments.
Telemedicine consultations did not improve physician-related quality of care vs telephone in pediatric emergency departments
Video vs Telephone Consultations for Pediatric Quality of Care in Emergency Departments.
This study is a secondary analysis of a pragmatic, cluster-randomized crossover trial in which telemedicine consultations were associated with reduced interfacility transfers but not with differences in medication prescribing errors.
We conducted a pragmatic, cluster-randomized crossover trial to determine the impact of pediatric critical care telemedicine consultations compared with telephone consultations on quality of care provided to seriously ill children younger than 15 years presenting to 16 rural and community emergency departments (emergency departments) over 2 years.
no meaningful difference in quality of care between telemedicine and telephone
We enrolled 696 children.
In the intention-to-treat analysis, 537 (77.1%) were assigned to telemedicine and 159 (22.9%) were assigned to telephone consultations.
The mean total quality-of-care scores for telephone and telemedicine were 25.3 (SD = 3.5) and 25.2 (SD = 3.5), respectively.
Domain-specific scores also did not differ by consultation modality.
In the context of previously reported reductions in interfacility transfers, telemedicine consultations in rural and community emergency departments were not associated with differences in physician-related quality of care compared with telephone consultations.