Findings from a new study show healthcare providers that use technology to provide patients a convenient alternative to in-person care may not be getting the most out of those programs. Fierce Healthcare writes researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Pennsylvania reviewed 5 years of healthcare encounters at a larger primary care practice, including “e-visits,” phone consultations and in-office visits, and discovered that providers that accepted e-visits actually saw a 6% increase in office visits. As a result, physicians spent more time each month seeing patients in person, which led to a 15% decline in new patients, according to the study, which will be published in Management Science. For the purposes of the study, e-visits were broadly defined to include patient portals, electronic communication and telemedicine. But researchers say the study unearths a new layer of unintended consequences associated with technology that may not be as beneficial as some have anticipated.
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