Largest study to date: exploring the use of telemedicine in pediatric neurology

Researchers at the Epilepsy Neurogenetics Project (ENGIN) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found that in nearly 50,000 visits, patients still effectively use telemedicine

This finding represents the largest research result of pediatric neurological telemedicine to date, published today in the journal Developmental Medicine and Pediatric Neurology

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted an unprecedented shift in outpatient clinical care from in-person visits to remote remote health visits

To that end, the research team hopes to determine the long-term impact of telemedicine on children's neurological care during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking into account the reopening

"In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic required the use of telemedicine visits, but now that telemedicine access has become part of the medical services we are able to provide, we have the opportunity to compare it more thoroughly with in-person visits," said Michael Kaufman, the study's first author, a data scientist

The researchers found that telemedicine is a viable option for many patients, and that telemedicine is used more frequently than face-to-face visits

In addition, the researchers found that the ethnic and minority populations that self-reported in the study, as well as those with the highest social vulnerability (an indicator of community resilience to stressors of human health), were less likely to participate in telemedicine visits

"Our team has studied telemedicine extensively, and our findings demonstrate how telemedicine has become a standard component of children's neurocare in many patients," said Ingo Helbig, MD, a pediatric neurologist at CHOP, who is the core director of genomic and data science at CHOP's Epilepsy Neurogenetics Program (ENGIN) and senior author

The research was supported by the Hartwell Foundation through the Individual Biomedical Research Award; The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke awarded K02 NS112600 and K23 NS102521; Wallless Center for Epilepsy Ion Channel Function Research "Channel Disease Related Research Center" funded project U54 NS108874; Eunice Kennedy Schreiffer National Institute for Child Health and Human Development awarded U54 HD086984 through the Center for Intellectual and Developmental Disorders (IDDRC) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania; Children's Hospital of Philadelphia receives on-campus funding through the Epilepsy Neurogenetics Initiative (ENGIN); Through the Interdisciplinary Program in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine (ITMAT), the National Center for Translational Science at the National Institutes of Health received the UL1TR001878 Award

Journal Reference:

1. Michael C.