Surgical Telemedicine in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era

October 26, 2020 updated by: University of Colorado, Denver

The current COVID-19 pandemic has caused delays in initial or follow-up encounters between surgical patients and physicians. While this delay allows for resource allocation to those most severely affected by the pandemic, surgeons are faced with potential important delays in diagnosis and the expanding backlog of elective cases and initial evaluations.

This project will assess surgeon and patient telemedicine perspectives. Pre-pandemic views on telemedicine among a cohort of surgeons will be obtained and compared to views at 3 months from the peak of the pandemic. Patients will be surveyed following telemedicine appointments with an anonymous questionnaire to learn about patient receptiveness to telemedicine. Barriers to implementation will be addressed throughout the duration of the study.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

180

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Colorado
      • Aurora, Colorado, United States, 80045
        • Children's Hospital Colorado

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

1 month to 18 years (Child, Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Surgical faculty at participating institutions will be able to complete pre and post pandemic surveys regarding telemedicine and barriers to implementation.

Surgical patients who complete a telemedicine encounter from the start of the study through a 6-month period will be included in the study. They will be able to complete an optional anonymous survey regarding perceptions to telemedicine and perceived barriers to implementation.

Description

Inclusion Criteria

  1. Surgical faculty at participating institutions will receive surveys regarding telemedicine early in the start of the study to assess baseline perceptions. These same group of surgeons will receive subsequent surveys 3 months after the peak of the pandemic to evaluate telemedicine perceptions following a rapid implementation and adoption of telemedicine.
  2. Surgical patients evaluated from the start of the study through a 6-month period will be included in the study. They will have the option after each telemedicine encounter to complete an anonymous survey regarding perceptions to this technology.

Exclusion Criteria

  1. No exclusions for surgical faculty are identified. Accrual of data from this group will be limited only by response rates to administered surveys.
  2. Exclusions for surgical patients will include the inability to access the technology required for a telemedicine consultation (e.g.: absence of a camera enabled smartphone, absence of a required internet or cellular connection to perform a telemedicine encounter). The investigators will keep a list of reasons for the inability to perform a telemedicine encounter to identify the barriers to implementation among patients.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Intervention / Treatment
Patients
Other: Completion of post telemedicine encounter survey
Patients will take a post telemedicine encounter survey to determine patient perceptions to telemedicine and barriers to implementation.
Surgeons
Other: Completion of pre-pandemic survey
Surgeons will take a pre-pandemic survey to determine surgeon perceptions to telemedicine and barriers to implementation.
Other: Completion of survey after peak of pandemic
Surgeons will take another survey after the peak of pandemic to determine surgeon perceptions to telemedicine and barriers to implementation.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Evaluate surgeon perceptions to telemedicine and perceived barriers to implementation
Time Frame: 6 months
Surgeons will take an anonymous survey early after the start of the study regarding perceptions to telemedicine and perceived barriers to implementation. Surgeons will be asked again after 3 months from the peak of the pandemic to take another survey to assess how the pandemic has changed perceptions to telemedicine and the observed barriers to implementation.
6 months
Evaluate patient perceptions to telemedicine and perceived barriers to implementation
Time Frame: 6 months
Patients will take an optional anonymous survey at the end of each telemedicine encounter to assess patient perceptions to telemedicine and barriers to implementation.
6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Colorado, Denver

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

July 1, 2020

Primary Completion (Actual)

October 1, 2020

Study Completion (Actual)

October 1, 2020

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 4, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 4, 2020

First Posted (Actual)

May 6, 2020

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

October 28, 2020

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 26, 2020

Last Verified

October 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 20-1177

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

No plan for IPD.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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