Study Design
This study was reviewed by the University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board (IRB) and was determined to be a quality improvement initiative that was exempted from further IRB review.
A retrospective chart review of telemedicine outpatient encounters by Head and Neck Otolaryngology faculty from March 25, 2020 to April 24, 2020 was conducted. All patients aged 18 years old or older seen via a telephone or video-based encounter were included. Demographic data was collected including (age, gender, race, and insurance status), and disease and treatment characteristics, and encounter type were collected from chart review.
Only patients with video-based telemedicine visits were contacted to complete the patient satisfaction survey and all participants provided verbal consent to participate (Figure 1). Patients answered demographic questions (education level) and questions regarding telemedicine visit characteristics (platform and device used, whether assistance was required for set up). A structured, likert-scale based survey consisting of the Telehealth Usability Questionnaire (TUQ) was administered.
The Telehealth Usability Questionnaire (TUQ) was chosen to assess patient satisfaction with the video-based telemedicine visits based on review of the literature to identify validated tools.25 The TUQ is a comprehensive and validated survey tool that includes questions in the domains of usefulness, ease of use, interaction quality (effectiveness), reliability, and satisfaction. It was chosen for its ability to address changes in telehealth service delivery, for example the use of different platforms or devices, as well as its ability to measure the quality of the telemedicine interaction and patient satisfaction with the encounter. The TUQ was developed from existing telehealth questionnaires and has robust independent content validity and internal consistency evidence.26