Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the impact of virtual care provision modalities (VPM) on patient satisfaction (PS) metrics for the specialized neurological care of Huntington’s disease (HD) patients living in Eastern Canada. A secondary goal of the study was to assess healthcare provider satisfaction (HPS, including physicians, specialized nurses, allied health workers, and clinical trainees) with VPM. Data from this study will also identify factors to improve healthcare delivery and infrastructure.

Background: Telemedicine, or VPM, is the use of electronic communication technology to facilitate healthcare between distant providers and patients. PS is an accepted performance measure of health care quality. There is a rich literature exploring the utility and validity of VPM in neurological disorders. 90% of Parkinson’s patients previously surveyed in Canada reported VPM as being equal or better than in-person care. To date, there has been no qualitative or quantitative metrics published regarding PS in HD.

Method: We administered a single time point questionnaire as part of a cross-sectional, qualitative design to assess PS levels. The study compared two cohorts: virtual platform encounters (either from home or from a devoted space equipped for VPM) and in-person patient encounters.

Results: For the virtual cohort, 31 patients and 13 caregivers answered. Most patients (93.5%), caregivers (92.3%), and clinicians (96.7%) state the encounter met expectations. For the in-person cohort, 57 patients and 18 caregivers answered. Most patients (98.2%), caregivers (94.4%), and clinicians (92.9%) state the encounter met expectations. Fisher’s exact test showed no statistical difference between virtual and in-person cohorts of patients (two tailed p = 0.2825) and caregivers (two tailed p = 1), who reported being satisfied. Clinician raters (n=2) reported being equally satisfied with virtual and in-person visits.

Conclusion: This study shows that expectations were equally met between virtual, and in-person visits for patients with HD, their caregivers, and clinicians. This project is a first step to validating virtual platforms across various movement disorders clinical populations. Given that VPM also constitutes a novel form of clinical supervision and trainee education, future work will be important to assess the feasibility and satisfaction of these encounters from pedagogical perspectives.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/telemedicine-and-in-person-encounters-in-a-huntingtons-disease-cohort-virtually-the-same/