The rapid transition to telehealth by primary healthcare (PHC) providers has showcased this care delivery modality as an alternative to traditional face-to-face patient consultations. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the critical importance of being able to provide effective telehealth that meets patients’ needs while reducing the risk of infection from SARS-CoV-2. To succeed, these efforts require guidelines and training, as well as careful attention to technological barriers and interpersonal relationship needs. ConclusionĮnsuring that health services provision meets patients’ needs at all times calls for flexibility in care delivery modalities, role shifting to adapt to virtual care, sustained relationships with patients, and interprofessional collaboration. For relational dimensions, positive implications included improved communication, as patients were more at ease at home, and the possibility of gathering information from what could be seen of the patient’s environment negative implications were related to concerns around maintaining the therapeutic relationship and changes in patients’ engagement and expectations. For professional impacts, positive implications were related to flexibility (teleworking, more availability for patients) and reimbursement, while negative implications were related to technological limitations experienced by both patients and practitioners. Positive implications for efficiency were related to improved follow-up care negative implications involved difficulties in diagnosing in the absence of direct physical examination and non-verbal cues. For patients’ access, positive implications referred to increased availability of services negative implications involved barriers due to difficulties with access to and use of technologies. Resultsįour key themes were identified, each with positive and negative implications: 1) access for patients 2) efficiency of care delivery 3) professional impacts and 4) relational dimensions of care. An inductive and deductive thematic analysis was carried out to identify implications of delivering care via telehealth. Topics covered included their practice history, changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the advantages and challenges of telehealth. We conducted 42 individual semi-structured video interviews with physicians in Quebec (N = 20) and Massachusetts (N = 22) in 2020. The aim of this study was to describe the positive and negative implications of using telehealth in one Canadian (Quebec) and one American (Massachusetts) PHC setting during the COVID-19 pandemic as reported by physicians. Providing telehealth that meets the needs of patients in a pandemic has presented many challenges for PHC providers. The COVID-19 pandemic has driven primary healthcare (PHC) providers to use telehealth as an alternative to traditional face-to-face consultations.
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