Barcelona Health Hub is a technology association founded in 2018, which integrates different companies in the sector. Its objective is to promote the knowledge, dissemination and innovation of Digital Health.
The study is entitled: Study of the virtual health consultation and its benefits for the healthcare system Proposals to promote virtual health consultations in the healthcare system. And its objective is to reflect on the current situation of the virtual consultation, to know the regulations in force in Spain and the contributions and benefits it brings to health systems including patients and professionals.
They considered the following points as requirements for a virtual health consultation: communication with secure encryption, registered patients to save their history, interoperability of the prescription with the rest of the system, system easily accessible and used for users, professionals must have accredited credentials and dedicate a part of their time to this modality, among others.
The methodology used for this study consisted of conducting interviews, reviewing legislation and academic evidence, and identifying success stories. They conducted 11 interviews, experts from the Spanish Patient Forum and L'Associació de Diabétics de Catalunya, and addressed the following topics:
- The conditions needed to conduct the virtual health consultation.
- Current barriers: regulatory, financial, professional practice, and others.
- What other countries are doing.
- Examples of successful cases.
- The legal changes required.
As regards the revision of the legislation, the following points were identified mainly: to know the definition accepted by different organizations of the concept of telemedicine, to identify the regulatory impulse that telemedicine has had in Spain and in the European Union, to identify ethical and ethical aspects, as well as risks and obligations for health workers, among others.
For the review of academic evidence, 224 results were found through PubMed and 16 additional results obtained from other sources, for a total of 240 articles, of which 43 were included and 197 excluded. The inclusion criteria were as follows:
- Studies in which the patient intervene.
- Original studies.
- Geographical location: Europe, United States and Canada.
And duplicate studies or with the same data were excluded, and those involving only health professionals, without patients.
Among the benefits found, they were classified into four categories:
- Benefits for health outcomes: Health outcomes similar to in-person consultations.
- Patients’ Experience: Patient Satisfaction; Improved access to outpatient visits; Cost and travel time savings; Shorter waiting time for entry into the clinic.
- Professionals’ experience: Satisfaction of professionals; Similar quality to face-to-face consultations.
- Sustainability of the healthcare system : Shorter waiting list; Resource optimization; Shorter consultation times and higher number of consultations; Fewer unnecessary in-person consultations.
To view the full report and learn more about the analyses performed, go to https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-launches-digital-health-center-excellence and download the document.
