Patient and Provider Satisfaction and Provider Intent to Use Virtual Video Technology for Medical and Surgical Visits in an Urban Ambulatory Setting During and in Peri-COVID-19 Era

As the presence of COVID-19 has become the “new normal,” the utilization of virtual care in delivering healthcare services is anticipated to remain or increase. The degree to which virtual care is utilized is dependent upon its quality and whether end users’ satisfaction is equivalent to or better than traditional in-person medical care, and if the end user’s intent to use telemedicine is high. Consequently, the aims of this study were to (1) understand whether patient satisfaction in ambulatory medical and surgical visits differs between virtual care and face-to-face modalities; (2) identify patient- and technology-specific variables associated with increased patient satisfaction with ambulatory medical and surgical visits provided virtually; (3) identify the provider and technology-specific variables associated with increased provider satisfaction with ambulatory medical and surgical visits provided virtually, and (4) identify provider- and technology-specific variables associated with providers’ increased intent to use virtual care for ambulatory medical and surgical visits. The study was conducted in an urban setting with hospital-based providers. To address the first aim of this study, a retrospective cross-sectional study design with matching procedures (i.e., propensity score matching) and a hierarchical linear regression model (HLM) was used. To address the remaining three aims of the study, a prospective mixed-methods cross-sectional study design with correlation coefficients, analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests, and chi-squared tests were used. Evaluating patient and provider satisfaction with virtual medical and surgical ambulatory services and providers’ intent to use virtual care in the future is critical for developing improvement strategies and promoting the adoption of telemedicine in the ambulatory setting. The results of this study may be used to inform the targeted implementation of virtual care in medical and surgical ambulatory care