Virtual Visits at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Virtual Visits at Brigham and Women's Hospital: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Clinicians slated for virtual visit rollout will be randomized (stratified by department) to either receive immediate virtual visit on-boarding (intervention arm) or delayed (3-months later) virtual visit on-boarding (control arm). The investigators plan to enroll no more than 200 clinicians.

Any clinician in a department selected by the Brigham Health Virtual Care team for access to virtual visits is eligible, unless s/he saw less than 20 patients monthly over the last 6 months.

The Brigham Health Virtual Care team will onboard all clinicians and provide virtual visit support as per their usual protocol. The primary study endpoint is third-available appointment, a well-adopted measure of access. Other secondary endpoints revolve around continuity, efficiency, utilization, safety, cost, and patient experience.

If enrolled in the intervention arm, the following steps will occur:

• The clinician will receive the intervention arm follow-up email ("Follow-up Email - Intervention" in the Appendix).
• The Brigham Health Virtual Care team will work with the clinician toward immediate on-boarding (software training, hardware setup, technical support) as per their usual process.
• The clinician will schedule virtual visits as s/he and/or her/his department see fit. Virtual visits occur on an already-in-use Partners- and Brigham-approved video platform (attached).

If enrolled in the control arm, the following steps will occur:

• The clinician will receive the control arm follow-up email ("Follow-up Email - Control" in the Appendix).
• Three months from the time of the follow-up email, the Brigham Health Virtual Care team will work with the clinician toward immediate on-boarding (software training, hardware setup, technical support) as per their usual process.
• The clinician will schedule virtual visits as s/he and/or her/his department see fit. Virtual visits occur on an already-in-use Partners- and Brigham-approved video platform (attached).

The investigators plan to follow patients of both clinician cohorts for a total of 6-months. The investigators will perform retrospective review of patient electronic health records and patients will receive a redcap survey (attached), an evaluation mechanism already employed by the Virtual Care team.

Again, aside from the initial randomization and retrospective data collection and analysis, all of the above would have occurred irrespective of this research protocol.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Clinician whose department is chosen for virtual visit rollout

Exclusion Criteria:

• Clinician who saw on average fewer than 20 patients monthly over the past 6 months
• Clinician who opts out of virtual visits