Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telehealth has been widely adopted, and several studies have highlighted the advantages of telehealth. 

This was a retrospective cohort study of neurology telehealth and in-person established patient encounters from Dayton Children’s Hospital. Data was abstracted from 04/01/2020 through 03/31/2024. Variables included demographics, appointment type (telehealth vs in-person), appointment date, primary diagnosis at appointment and Net Promoter Score (NPS) number and category. NPS is a Likert scale metric used as a proxy for patient experience. A matched patient analysis was also conducted.

There were 2,863 in-person visit encounters and 635 telehealth visit encounters.

In the four-year period, telehealth encounters had a greater mean NPS of 9.7, compared to in-person visits (9.5, p-value of 0.005). Both telehealth and in-person encounters had more than 90% of promoter scores, indicating a high score of 9-10. During the COVID-19 time period (defined as 04/01/2020 to 5/4/2023), NPS were higher with a mean of 9.7 for telehealth encounters, compared to in-person encounters (9.5, p=0.008). There were no differences in NPS post-COVID-19. Primary encounter diagnoses of Epilepsy/Seizure had a greater mean NPS for telehealth visits (9.7) compared to in-person encounters (9.5, p=0.003). The matched patient analysis revealed no difference between telehealth and in-person encounter NPSs with means of 9.7 and 9.6, respectively. 

Net Promoter Score, which are a measure of patient experience, were superior or equal to in-person visits for pediatric neurology telehealth encounters both during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the post-pandemic period.