Efficacy, efficiency, and acceptability of telemedicine for inflammatory bowel disease patients follow-up care during the covid-19 pandemic.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, ambulatory clinic visits were replaced by the implementation of telehealth modalities in most IBD units. Aims: To assess the efficacy, efficiency, patient satisfaction, and acceptability of using telephone consultation in an IBD unit. Methods: A prospective cohort study was performed in IBD patients who underwent telephone consultation during COVID-19 lockdown (between 16th March and 13th April 2020). To assess the efficacy of this telephone consultation (lockdown-visit), non-scheduled visits, emergency consultation, hospital admission, and surgery from lockdown-visit to the next scheduled consultation (post-lockdown) were checked. To evaluate efficiency, the time between lockdown -visit and post- lockdown consultation were compared with previous consultation (pre-lockdown), and the total number of visits 12 months before and after lockdown -visit were checked. A telephone survey was designed to rate perception for a telephone consultation. Results: Out of a total of 274 patients, 220 patients (52.2% male; mean age 49 +/- 16 years; Crohn ' s disease n=126, ulcerative colitis n=83, indeterminate colitis n=11) were included. Only one patient was consulted at the emergency department, 11 patients needed to rearrange the visit and none patient underwent surgery before the scheduled post- lockdown visit. The interval to post-lockdown visit compared to pre-lockdown visit increased in 37.7% of patients. The satisfaction survey (n=185) revealed that 94.6% perceived it was effective. However, 44.4% of patients rather prefer on-site consultation for follow-up. Conclusions: Telemedicine during the COVID-pandemic shows to be effective and efficient to care for IBD patients. In addition, telephone consultation is well accepted by patients in non-extended follow-up periods.