Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID‐19 Era: Initial Lessons Learned

Objectives/Hypothesis The COVID‐19 pandemic has led to unprecedented global changes in the delivery of healthcare over a short period of time. With the implementation of shelter‐in‐place orders, otolaryngology clinic visits at our institution were transitioned to telemedicine. This change enabled the rapid characterization of the patients who accepted and declined telemedicine. Study Design Cross‐sectional analysis. Methods A review was conducted of 525 otolaryngology patients at a tertiary‐care referral center with scheduled visits requiring rescheduling to a future date or a telemedicine visit. Visit, demographic information, and reason for deferring telemedicine were collected for analysis. Results Seventy‐two percent of patients declined a telemedicine visit, with the most common reason being the lack of a physical exam (97%). There was an even distribution of demographics between those who accepted and declined visits. There was an association between declining telemedicine with older age (P = .0004) and otology visits (P = .0003), whereas facial plastics patients were more likely to accept (P