Comparable Evidence of Telehealth Benefits vs In-Person Care for Pediatrics: Gogi Kumar, MD

WATCH TIME: 4 minutes

"Telehealth is a great tool in our toolbox to deliver care—and now we have data to support what many of us intuitively believed."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth rapidly expanded across neurology, enabling continued patient care amid widespread disruptions to in-person visits. Neurologists adapted quickly, leveraging video and remote monitoring tools for follow-up care, medication management, and even elements of neurological examination. While telehealth improved efficiencies of patient care during a challenging period, some questioned whether the benefits are as good as in-person care, especially for pediatric patients.

Earlier this year, a small group of investigators published data from a single-site, retrospective cohort study testing patient experience scores of telehealth versus in-person established encounters in an outpatient pediatric neurology clinic. Led by Gogi Kumar, MD, the data was collected from April 2020, considered the onset of the pandemic, through March 2024, with variables that included demographics, appointment type, appointment date, primary diagnosis and net promoter score (NPS) number and category.

Kumar, a pediatric neurologist and division chief of Child Neurology at Dayton Children’s Hospital, recently sat down to discuss the findings, and the reasons behind the study. She broke down the findings, which showed that telehealth visits–especially for pediatric patients with epilepsy–scored as well as, or better than, in-person visits. Kumar, leader of the Special Interest Group on telehealth at the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium (PERC), emphasized that the data reinforce telehealth as a sustainable, high-quality care delivery tool.

Click here to learn more about research conducted by members of PERC.

REFERENCE
1. Kumar G, Fonseca LD, Joshi S, Turek G, Ng EA, Reyes I. Patient Experience Scores for Telehealth Visits at an Outpatient Child Neurology Clinic: A Retrospective Cohort Study. Telemedicine and e-health. Published online February 24, 2025. doi:10.1089/tmj.2025.0004