Virtual new and return clinics make up significant outpatient hospital activity
Virtual attendances to hospital outpatient clinics rose to more than 85,000 last month and accounted for 45 per cent of all new and return attendances, according to the latest activity figures from the Health Service Executive (HSE).
New and return outpatient attendances this year totalled almost 191,000 in May including virtual clinics.
This compared to over 306,000 traditional attendances in May 2019.
In April, virtual attendances made up half of the overall new and return attendances totalling 167,000; in March overall outpatient activity slumped to almost 210,000 attendances, including over 34,000 virtual attendances.
A significant and marked increase in the use of virtual health and telehealth had been seen during Covid-19, according to Anne O’Connor, HSE, Chief Operations Officer.
They were looking to see how they could further develop approaches to telehealth and how these services could be delivered in different ways.
She said some specialties lent themselves very well to telehealth, for example, primary care settings.
Telehealth had been a significant part of what they had introduced during Covid-19 and the HSE had started to capture national data on telehealth since March.
They needed to look at ways of delivering outpatient services in a way that was safe for people attending and for staff. She added they could not go back to the system of large numbers of people sitting in hospital outpatient waiting rooms.
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