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Patient-centred medicine
Research
Telehealth and patient satisfaction: a systematic review and narrative analysis
  1. Clemens Scott Kruse,
  2. Nicole Krowski,
  3. Blanca Rodriguez,
  4. Lan Tran,
  5. Jackeline Vela,
  6. Matthew Brooks
  1. Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Clemens Scott Kruse; scottkruse{at}txstate.edu, scottkruse{at}sbcglobal.net

Abstract

Background The use of telehealth steadily increases as it has become a viable modality to patient care. Early adopters attempt to use telehealth to deliver high-quality care. Patient satisfaction is a key indicator of how well the telemedicine modality met patient expectations.

Objective The objective of this systematic review and narrative analysis is to explore the association of telehealth and patient satisfaction in regards to effectiveness and efficiency.

Methods Boolean expressions between keywords created a complex search string. Variations of this string were used in Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature and MEDLINE.

Results 2193 articles were filtered and assessed for suitability (n=44). Factors relating to effectiveness and efficiency were identified using consensus. The factors listed most often were improved outcomes (20%), preferred modality (10%), ease of use (9%), low cost 8%), improved communication (8%) and decreased travel time (7%), which in total accounted for 61% of occurrences.

Conclusion This review identified a variety of factors of association between telehealth and patient satisfaction. Knowledge of these factors could help implementers to match interventions as solutions to specific problems.

  • patient satisfaction
  • telehealth
  • telemedicine
  • quality
  • access
  • patient quality
  • telecommunications
  • home telehealth.

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016242

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors CK directed the initial research, served as lead author, mediated discussions about the merit of abstracts/articles, integrated the input from all team members and helped refine the figure and tables to provide continuity and flow. NK contributed the initial draft of the introduction and integrated her viewpoints into the methods, discussion and worked with JV on the in-text citations. BR contributed the initial draft of the abstract and integrated her viewpoints into the methods, discussion (benefits). LT created the initial draft of figure 1 (literature review process) and the initial draft of benefits and barriers charts. JV integrated her viewpoints into the methods, the initial draft of the discussion (barriers) section and worked with NK on the in-text citations. MB served as an expert in research in U.S. Veterans due to his research in this area, and he contributed meaningful contribution to the formation of analysis and conclusion.

    • Competing interests None declared

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement All data are freely available.