Patient and clinician satisfaction with home parenteral nutrition intestinal failure telemedicine consultations: A survey of clinicians and patients

Introduction
Despite the widespread use of telemedicine to assess patients with intestinal failure (IF) receiving home parenteral nutrition (HPN), satisfaction with remote consultation methods has not been comprehensively assessed. Here, we assessed patient and clinician attitudes to telephone and video IF consultations.

Methods
Telemedicine questionnaires were designed and distributed in paper form to patients with IF receiving HPN under the care of a UK national IF reference center and electronically to IF clinicians in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

Results
Seventy-eight patients (53 women and 25 men) and 110 clinicians agreed to complete the questionnaires. Sixty seven percent of patients who had telephone consultations and 50% of patients who had video consultations were satisfied with their consultations. Forty nine percent and 83% of patients who had telephone and video consultations, respectively, felt they were of the same standard as their face-to-face consultations. Despite 60% of clinicians feeling telemedicine training would be useful, 55% of clinicians stated they mostly or always met all of the needs of their patients via telephone consultations, whereas 96% of clinicians felt similarly for video consultations (P = 0.002). A total of 33% and 57% of clinicians felt telephone and video consultations, respectively, were of the same standard as face-to-face consultations (P = 0.004).

Conclusion
This study comprehensively assesses attitudes to IF telemedicine consultations. Our data show that a large proportion of patients and clinicians are satisfied with IF telephone and video consultations. However, there is an unmet need amongst clinicians for telemedicine training.