Decreased Completion of Ordered Laboratories and Imaging in Telehealth Compared With In-person Hepatology Encounters.

Objective: To evaluate order completion after telehealth compared with in-person encounters.

Background: Completion of ordered testing, including laboratories and imaging, is an important aspect of successful outpatient care of patients with liver disease. Whether the completion of orders from telehealth encounters differs from in-person visits is unknown.

Materials and methods: Completion of ordered laboratories and imaging from hepatology encounters at our center from 2021 to 2022 were evaluated and compared between video telehealth and in-person visits. Laboratory completion was evaluated at 14 days, 30 days, and 90 days, and imaging completion was assessed at 1 year.

Results: Telehealth encounters were significantly less likely to have laboratories completed at all evaluated time points (14 d: 40.7% vs 90.9%; 30 d: 50.9% vs 92.2%; 90 d: 63.9% vs 94.3%, P< 0.001 for all). Among telehealth encounters, encounters in patients more remote from the center were less likely to have laboratories completed. Imaging ordered at telehealth encounters was also less likely to be completed within 1 year (62.5% vs 70.1%, P< 0.001), including liver ultrasounds (59.1% vs 67.6%, P= 0.001), which persisted when limited to encounters for cirrhosis (55.8% vs 66.4%, P= 0.01).

Conclusions: Telehealth encounters were significantly less likely to have ordered laboratories and imaging completed compared with in-person visits, which has important clinical implications for effective outpatient care of patients with liver disease. Further research is needed to better understand the barriers to order completion for telehealth visits and ways to optimize this to improve the effectiveness of this visit modality.