Miah, S;
Dunford, C;
Edison, M;
Eldred-Evans, D;
Gan, C;
Shah, TT;
Lunn, P;
... Hrouda, D; + view all
(2018)
A prospective clinical, cost and environmental analysis of a clinician-led urology virtual clinic.
Annals of The Royal College of Surgeons of England
10.1308/rcsann.2018.0151.
(In press).
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Abstract
Introduction: A virtual clinic is a form of telemedicine where contact between clinical teams and patients occur without face-to-face consultation. Our study aims to quantify the clinical, financial and environmental benefits of our virtual urology clinic. / Material and methods: We collected data prospectively from our weekly follow-up virtual clinic over a continuous four-month period between July and September 2017. / Results: In total, we reviewed 409 patients. Following virtual clinic consultation, 68.5% of our patients were discharged from further follow-up. The majority of our patients (male 57.7%, female 55.5%) were of working age. The satisfaction scores were high, at 90.1%, and there were no reported adverse events as a result of using the virtual clinic. Our calculated cost savings were £18,744, with a predicted 12-month cost saving of £56,232. The creation of additional face-to-face clinic capacity has created an estimated 12-month increase in tariff generation for our unit of £72,072. In total, 4623 travel miles were avoided by patients using the virtual clinic, with an estimated avoided carbon footprint of 0.35–1.45 metric tonnes of CO2e, depending on mode of transport. Our predicted 12-month avoided carbon footprint is 1.04–4.04 metric tonnes of CO2e. / Conclusions: Our virtual clinic model has demonstrated a trifecta of positive outcomes, namely, clinical, financial and environmental benefits. The environmental importance and benefits of a virtual clinic should be promoted as a social enterprise value when engaging stakeholders in setting up such a urological service. We propose the adoption of our virtual clinic model in those urological units considering this method of telemedicine.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A prospective clinical, cost and environmental analysis of a clinician-led urology virtual clinic |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1308/rcsann.2018.0151 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1308/rcsann.2018.0151 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10050919 |
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