For new neurology patients, seeing a physician in person or virtually made no difference in how soon they needed care next, according to an April 22 study in Neurology.
The researchers used EHR data from three academic medical centers to analyze over 16,000 neurology visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that a quarter of patients had a follow-up patient appointment within 90 days, irrespective of visit type.
“Our results suggest that virtual visits are appropriate for an initial neurologic evaluation across a range of conditions,” said study author Chloé Hill, MD, of Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan, in an April 22 news release. “We found that neurology patients with initial virtual visits do not typically experience higher rates of trips to the emergency department or hospitalizations. Future research should investigate more fully if people with different conditions may benefit more from one particular type of visit.”
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