The use of Telemedicine in primary care setting.

Purpose: During the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine has become a valuable tool for physicians to remotely care for patients. Limited quality of care has been a major barrier of telemedicine. This project attempts to resolve this barrier through the use of home visit and Eko Stethoscope device as parts of telemedicine. The hypothesis is that there is an improvement in the number of use of telemedicine in the elderly patients, 65 of ages or more, with the intervention. Methods: In this project, the number of patients, who is 65 years old or more and use at least one time of telemedicine, is documented through 2 designated periods, the months of April and June. The April period is prior to intervention and June period is the after. Results: The data shows there is 17 telemedicine used out of 84 patients who are eligible for the service during the period of April. The data also shows 38 calls out of 111 patients during June period. This is a rise of 14% in the number of telemedicine use in one period. Conclusions The data shows positive result in number of telemedicine use with intervention. Many patients prefer the in-office visit because of its quality and trust physician-patient relationship. The intervention has improved the telemedicine quality of care, thus, motivates patient to use the service. The next step would be training more nurses who are capable of home visit. In addition, an in-office advertisement of telemedicine could be beneficial.