To determine surgical outcomes for virtual compared to office pre-surgery visits.

Design:

Retrospective cohort

Setting:

Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery Practice

Patients or Participants:

Patients who had a pre-surgery virtual or office visit and subsequent surgery between 10/2019 and 12/2022. We excluded patients with both virtual and office pre-surgery visits.

Interventions:

We collected patient demographics, surgery type, number of pre- and post-surgery visits and phone calls, post-surgery emergency room visits and admissions, reoperations, and costs. Virtual and office visits were compared.

Measurements and Main Results: 976 patients (77.6%) had virtual visits, and 338 patients (22.4%) had office visits. Patients who had virtual visits were younger (mean 39.2 vs. 42.4 years, p<0.001). Other baseline characteristics were similar in both groups.

The mean number of pre-surgery visits was lower in the virtual visits group (2.8 vs. 3.1, p=0.009). The proportion of laparoscopic surgeries was similar in both groups. Compared to the office visits groups, women with virtual visits had fewer hysterectomies (28.5% vs. 35.5%, p=0.024), and more endometriosis excisions (54.4% vs 39.7%, p<0.001).

Surgery length was shorter in the virtual visit group (mean 119.7 vs. 136.9 minutes, p=0.001). However, total hospital admission time did not differ between groups.

Post-surgery, the number of emergency department visits, admissions or reoperations was similar in both groups. These results remained unchanged in sub-analyses by surgery types: hysterectomy, endometriosis excision or myomectomy.

The mean number of post-surgery visits was higher in the virtual visits group (0.9 vs. 0.8, p=0.013).

Total costs were lower in the pre-surgery virtual visit group (111246.2 vs. 121975.9 USD, p=0.004). However, in multivariable regression analysis, pre-surgery visit type was not independently associated with total costs [aOR 1.00 (0.60-1.68), p=0.988].

Conclusion:

Pre-surgery virtual and office visits result in similar surgical outcomes. Virtual pre-surgical visits can be considered an alternative to pre-surgery office visits.