Patient satisfaction with telehealth in neurosurgery outpatient clinic during COVID-19 pandemic

Background: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, neurosurgical outpatient practices have rapidly adopted telemedicine services to meet the needs of patients. To date, patient satisfaction with telemedicine in the neurosurgery, outpatient setting has not been evaluated with a validated survey. Methods: Patients that completed telemedicine (phone or video) visits (new, return, or postoperative visits) in the outpatient neurosurgery clinic from June 1, 2020 to August 15, 2020 were queried with a portion of the Press Ganey (R) (PG) survey. Survey questions related to satisfaction with the care provider. For each question, satisfaction was defined as a score of 4 or greater on 5 point scale. Demographic data was also collected. ANOVA F test (R) was used to compare the continuous variables while Chi-square test or Fisher's exact test was used to compare categorical variables among the three groups. Results: The response rate was 19% of the 934 participants who were eligible to participate via email. The 179 respondents included 97 new consults, 20 postoperative visits, and 62 return visits. Mean age was 63 years (range 16-91 years). The female to male ratio was 49.7%-50.3%. For all Press Ganey (R) questions relating to the care providers, respondents reported aggregate satisfaction rates greater than 92%. There were no significant differences among the three groups (new consults, postoperative visits, return visits) in terms of their demographics or degree of satisfaction (Table 2). Conclusions: Implementation of telehealth in an academic neurosurgery program is viable. Our findings demonstrate high levels of patient satisfaction with clinical providers during telehealth visits. Additional study is needed to understand factors driving patient satisfaction with telehealth.