Patients and Provider Experiences with Telemedicine for Follow-up Care in Military Settings

Background: Telemedicine offers patients and physicians the opportunity to advance health care delivery to active duty and retired military personnel. Assessing the efficacy and feasibility of performing post-surgery follow-up assessment through telemedicine at a large military hospital, while examining patient and provider experience and satisfaction with the telemedicine follow-up visit and estimating patients’ willingness-to-use and willingness-to-pay for telemedicine consultations may help to shape the future use of telemedicine in the military settings. Methods: We administered surveys to 96 unique patients who agreed to perform a follow-up telemedicine visit, rather than a traditional face-to-face visit, after undergoing a minor surgery at a large army military hospital in the southeast region of the United States. We also administered a survey to six physicians. Results: Most of the patients strongly agreed (86.5%) or somewhat agreed (10.8%) that their medical problems were adequately addressed during the telemedicine visit. Most physicians were either satisfied (7.5%) or extremely satisfied (75.5%) with the overall experience. Less than half of the patients were willing to use a similar telemedicine visit for a fee in the future and only two patients were willing to pay $100 for such visit. Conclusion: After minor surgery, follow-up telemedicine visits may be an effective, efficient, and convenient alternative to face-to-face visits for active duty and retired military personnel.