Riassunto dello studio

Eight randomized controlled trials including 1008 patients were included in this meta-analysis comparing telemedicine to in-person orthopaedic assessments. The primary outcome of interest was patient satisfaction. Secondary outcomes of interest included surgeon satisfaction, meeting time, and patient-reported outcomes. Pooled results revealed no statistical significant difference was observed between the groups with regards to patients satsifaction (OR=0.89 [95%CI 0.4,1.99]; p=0.79). Moreover, no statistical significant difference was observed for pooled surgeon satisfaction between the telemedicine and control group (OR=0.38 [95% CI 0.07, 2.19]; p=0.29). However, pooled results demonstrated that time commitment was shorter in the telemedicine group vs control both when travel time was included (180 minutes shorter, [95%CI 78, 281]; p<0.001) and excluded (17 minutes shorter, [95% CI 2, 32]; p=0.03). For patient reported outcomes, pooling was not performed for disease-specific function (WOMAC, Morrey Outcome Scale), pain (VAS, Revised Faces Pain Scale), and generic function measures (i.e., SF-12, EQ-5D) due to the heterogeneity of the measures across studies.