Telemedicine

The American Heart Association announced a new program to virtually connect health care facilities to volunteer cardiologists.

A survey revealed significant differences in the perception of telemedicine between infectious disease consultants and referring providers after Yale-New Haven Hospital began using remote consultation last year because of the pandemic.

While COVID-19 ushered in what many believe to be a long overdue increase in telehealth in rheumatology, whether its benefits justify the potentially diminished doctor-patient relationship remained hotly debated during the EULAR 2021 Congress.

As COVID-19 prevented millions of patients from seeing their doctors, the demand for telemedicine in dermatology increased.

Telemedicine enabled headache care for “many patients” during the COVID-19 pandemic, with high rates of patient satisfaction, according to findings from a survey with more than 1,000 respondents.

Patients who are Black, Latino, low socioeconomic status, older or use public insurance were less likely to engage in videoconferencing visits compared with in-person or telephone visits, according to a presenter at Digestive Disease Week.

The proportion of telemedicine visits at diabetes clinics in the T1D Exchange Quality Improvement Collaborative increased dramatically from less than 1% before the COVID-19 pandemic to about 95% in April 2020, according to study data.

Virtual telemedicine visits provided similar patient-reported satisfaction compared with in-person visits for hair disorders, according to a survey study presented at AAD VMX 2021.

This week, the benefits of using telemedicine to address sleep disorders and provide cystic fibrosis care; rituximab may be an effective adjuvant treatment for systemic sclerosis and PAH; the FDA says facilities should move away from crisis capacity conservation measures; and researchers call for standardization to identify and categorize environmental exposures when assessing interstitial lung disease progression.

Capillary blood collection kits, suitable for home use, were shown to be easy to use and provided HbA1c measurements that are comparable to those obtained from venous specimens in the clinic, study data show.