General Practitioners' Perceptions of Whether Teleconsultations Reduce the Number of Face-to-face Visits in the Catalan Public Primary Care System: Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study.
BACKGROUND
eConsulta is a teleconsultation service involving general practitioners (GPs) and patients. It is part of the information system belonging to Catalonia's primary care service. It has been in operation since the end of 2015 in conjunction with face-to-face consultations with Primary Care Teams as one of the services offered in the patient's Personal Health Folder.


OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to assess the ability of using eConsulta to reduce the number of face-to-face visits to Primary Care Teams.


METHODS
Using 13 categories proposed by the researchers, 18 GPs from the Central Catalonia Health Region retrospectively classified 2268 cases managed with eConsulta and indicated whether, in their opinion, the teleconsultations reduced the number of face-to-face visits.


RESULTS
There was broad consensus among the GPs that eConsulta has the potential to resolve patient queries for every type of consultation. eConsulta avoided the need for a face-to-face visit in 87.9% of cases. In addition, the GPs reported that the ease of access increased the demand for health care support in 27.7% of cases; otherwise, the patient would not have initiated the queries. Therefore, based on the equation (88% x [1-28%]), eConsulta could replace 63%-88% of conventional appointments. The most frequent uses of the teleconsultation service were for management of test results (35.2%), medical enquiries (16.0%), and the management of repeat prescriptions (12.2%). On average, the teleconsultations consisted of a mean 1.57 messages (SD 0.54 messages); 45.9% (1040/2268) of the teleconsultations consisted of 1 message, and the majority of the remaining teleconsultations consisted of 2-5 interactions. The patient initiated 60.0% (1361/2268) of the teleconsultations.


CONCLUSIONS
Based on the GPs' perceptions, eConsulta could replace 63%-88% of conventional appointments. Therefore, asynchronous teleconsultations between practitioners and patients in primary care could avoid interactions that have limited added clinical value.
['López Seguí|Francesc|F|0000-0003-0977-0215', 'Vidal-Alaball|Josep|J|0000-0002-3527-4242', 'Sagarra Castro|Marta|M|0000-0001-5219-6541', 'García-Altés|Anna|A|0000-0003-3889-5375', 'García Cuyàs|Francesc|F|0000-0002-2448-5466']
D000328:Adult D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D005260:Female D058005:General Practitioners D006801:Humans D008297:Male D011320:Primary Health Care D019114:Remote Consultation D012189:Retrospective Studies D013030:Spain
general practitioners primary care remote consultation telemedicine