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Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.

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Become a member and receive career-enhancing benefits

Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.

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JACS Study Suggests Telemedicine Can Provide High-Quality Communication for Surgical Consultation

Recent research in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons suggests that while in-person consultations with surgeons are critical to preparing appropriate care, virtual consultations are a convenient, effective tool for shared decision-making.

With recently enacted cuts to Medicare threatening patient access to surgical care in communities across the US and a growing awareness of the impact of disparities in access to surgery due to socioeconomic issues, telemedicine has emerged as potential aid to help patients establish high-quality communication with surgeons. 

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a rapid expansion of the use of telemedicine visits, which allows patients and their healthcare teams to meet remotely through secure video-based platforms.

“Across the entire healthcare system, we now do about 20,000 telehealth visits a month. Previously, there had been concerns about whether we could effectively communicate with patients remotely, but we found that patients are just as satisfied with telehealth visits as in-person appointments,” said study co-author Alexander T. Hawkins, MD, MPH, FACS, associate professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN.

However, since telehealth visits do not allow for in-office physical exams, there are situations when it’s not appropriate. To that end, some surgeons reported that telemedicine should be used for follow-up care, after they have already established the relationship, instead of for first-time consultations.

Future research will include more in-depth studies to identify a condition-by-condition guide for when telemedicine should be used and to see when telehealth is more appropriate for follow-up care.

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