Virtual prenatal visits associated with high measures of patient experience and satisfaction among average-risk patients: a prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Virtual visits have the potential to decrease barriers to prenatal care stemming from transportation, work, and childcare concerns. However, data regarding patient experience and satisfaction with virtual visits remain limited in obstetrics. To address this gap, we explore average-risk pregnant women's experiences with virtual visits and compare satisfaction with virtual vs. in-person visits as a secondary aim. METHODS: In this IRB-approved, prospective cohort study, we surveyed pregnant women after their first virtual visit between October 7, 2019 and March 20, 2020. Using heterogeneous purposive sampling, we identified a subset of respondents with diverse experiences and opinions for interviews. For comparison, Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) satisfaction data were collected after in-person visits during the study timeframe from a control cohort with the same prenatal providers. Logistic regression controlling for age, previous pregnancies, and prior live births compared satisfaction data between virtual and in-person visits. Other quantitative survey data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. Free text survey responses and interview data were analyzed using content analysis. RESULTS: Ninety five percent (n = 165/174) of surveys and 90% (n = 18/20) of interviews were completed. Most participants were Caucasian, married, and of middle to high income. 69% (114/165) agreed that their virtual appointment was as good as in-person; only 13% (21/165) disagreed. Almost all (148/165, 90%) would make another virtual appointment. Qualitative data highlighted ease of access, comparable provider-patient communication, confidence in care quality, and positive remote monitoring experiences. Recognizing these advantages but also inherent limitations, interviews emphasized interspersing telemedicine with in-person prenatal encounters. CAHPS responses after in-person visits were available for 60 patients. Logistic regression revealed no significant difference in three measures of satisfaction (p = 0.16, 0.09, 0.13) between virtual and in-person visits. CONCLUSIONS: In an average-risk population, virtual prenatal visits provide a patient-centered alternative to traditional in-person encounters with high measures of patient experience and no significant difference in satisfaction. Obstetric providers should explore telemedicine to improve access - and, during the ongoing pandemic, to minimize exposures - using patients' experiences for guidance. More research is needed regarding virtual visits' medical quality, integration into prenatal schedules, and provision of equitable care for diverse populations.

Incorporating Stakeholder Perspectives on Scarce Resource Allocation: Lessons Learned from Policymaking in a Time of Crisis.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis provoked an organizational ethics dilemma: how to develop ethical pandemic policy while upholding our organizational mission to deliver relationship- and patient-centered care. Tasked with producing a recommendation about whether healthcare workers and essential personnel should receive priority access to limited medical resources during the pandemic, the bioethics department and survey and interview methodologists at our institution implemented a deliberative approach that included the perspectives of healthcare professionals and patient stakeholders in the policy development process. Involving the community more, not less, during a crisis required balancing the need to act quickly to garner stakeholder perspectives, uncertainty about the extent and duration of the pandemic, and disagreement among ethicists about the most ethically supportable way to allocate scarce resources. This article explains the process undertaken to garner stakeholder input as it relates to organizational ethics, recounts the stakeholder perspectives shared and how they informed the triage policy developed, and offers suggestions for how other organizations may integrate stakeholder involvement in ethical decision-making as well as directions for future research and public health work.

Making the most of the first prenatal visit: The challenge of expanding prenatal genetic testing options and limited clinical encounter time.

OBJECTIVE: Advances in prenatal genetics place additional challenges as patients must receive information about a growing array of screening and testing options. This raises concerns about how to achieve a shared decision-making process that prepares patients to make an informed decision about their choices about prenatal genetic screening and testing options, calling for a reconsideration of how healthcare providers approach the first prenatal visit. METHODS: We conducted interviews with 40 pregnant women to identify components of decision-making regarding prenatal genetic screens and tests at this visit. Analysis was approached using grounded theory. RESULTS: Participants brought distinct notions of risk to the visit, including skewed perceptions of baseline risk for a fetal genetic condition and the implications of screening and testing. Participants were very concerned about financial considerations associated with these options, ranking out-of-pocket costs on par with medical considerations. Participants noted diverging priorities at the first visit from those of their healthcare provider, leading to barriers to shared decision-making regarding screening and testing during this visit. CONCLUSION: Research is needed to determine how to restructure the initiation of prenatal care in a way that best positions patients to make informed decisions about prenatal genetic screens and tests.

Association Between Public Trust and Provider Specialty Among Physicians With Financial Conflicts of Interest.

OBJECTIVES: To characterize public perception of physicians' conflicts of interest (COIs) across medical and surgical specialties. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional 6-arm randomized survey of a nonprobability sample from Amazon's Mechanical Turk occurred on December 11 to 16, 2018. Survey respondents were randomly assigned to vignettes that varied the physician specialty with COI. The primary outcome was mean difference in Mayer Trust, and the secondary outcome included the proportion who desire to discontinue care. RESULTS: There were 1729 of 1920 respondents who completed the experiment (90.1% completion rate). Respondents were male (52.5%; n=907), white (71.4%; n=1234), and between the ages of 25 and 44 years (70.9%; n=1227). Mean ± SD Mayer Trust across the 6 specialties was 3.7±.60, with the only between-specialty differences observed for psychiatry compared with the other specialties (F=5.4; P<.001). The median dollar amount that would affect respondents' trust in a physician was $5000 (interquartile range, $100-$100,000). A total of 75.1% (n=1298) of respondents desired COI information, with 41.6% (n=720) discontinuing care. Age older than 34 years (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.7; 95%, CI, 0.49-0.99; P=.047), nonwhite race (aOR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.02-1.6; P=.03), educational attainment of 4 or more years of college (aOR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.05-1.6; P=.016), and physician specialty as a psychiatrist (aOR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.03-2.2; P=.034) were predictors for discontinuing care. CONCLUSION: Public COI disclosure is a common method for managing financial conflicts. Although survey respondents were more likely to discontinue care with a physician with COI, they will act on this knowledge of COI differently depending on the specialty of the physician. The finding that psychiatry is an outlier may be a chance finding that warrants further confirmation. Continued efforts to ensure best practices for disclosure are required.

Poverty: Not a Justification for Banning Physician-Assisted Death.

Many critics of the legalization of physician-assisted death oppose it in part because they fear it will further disadvantage those who are already economically disadvantaged. This argument points to a serious problem of how economic considerations can influence medical decisions, but in the context of PAD, the concern is not borne out. We will provide empirical evidence suggesting that concerns about money influence medical decisions throughout the full course of illness, but at the end of life, financial pressure is much more likely to influence a decision to pursue or reject aggressive life-extending care than it is to influence a request for PAD. We will also address the question of whether financial pressure as a result of being poor-particularly in the context of an inadequate social safety net-robs people of their autonomy, rendering their informed request and consent invalid. We argue that it does not. We will emphasize the impracticality and injustice of rejecting the role of poverty as a legitimate factor in decision-making, the irrational distinction between PAD and withdrawal of life-sustaining care, and the more appropriate focus on the great flaws in the American health care system.

Patient Advocacy Organizations, Industry Funding, and Conflicts of Interest.

Importance: Patient advocacy organizations (PAOs) are influential health care stakeholders that provide direct counseling and education for patients, engage in policy advocacy, and shape research agendas. Many PAOs report having financial relationships with for-profit industry, yet little is known about the nature of these relationships. Objective: To describe the nature of industry funding and partnerships between PAOs and for-profit companies in the United States. Design, Setting, and Participants: A survey was conducted from September 1, 2013, to June 30, 2014, of a nationally representative random sample of 439 PAO leaders, representing 5.6% of 7865 PAOs identified in the United States. Survey questions addressed the nature of their activities, their financial relationships with industry, and the perceived effectiveness of their conflict of interest policies. Main Outcomes and Measures: Amount and sources of revenue as well as organizational experiences with and policies regarding financial conflict of interest. Results: Of the 439 surveys mailed to PAO leaders, 289 (65.8%) were returned with at least 80% of the questions answered. The PAOs varied widely in terms of size, funding, activities, and disease focus. The median total revenue among responding organizations was $299 140 (interquartile range, $70 000-$1 200 000). A total of 165 of 245 PAOs (67.3%) reported receiving industry funding, with 19 of 160 PAOs (11.9%) receiving more than half of their funding from industry. Among the subset of PAOs that received industry funding, the median amount was $50 000 (interquartile range, $15 000-$200 000); the median proportion of industry support derived from the pharmaceutical, device, and/or biotechnology sectors was 45% (interquartile range, 0%-100%). A total of 220 of 269 respondents (81.8%) indicated that conflicts of interest are very or moderately relevant to PAOs, and 94 of 171 (55.0%) believed that their organizations' conflict of interest policies were very good. A total of 22 of 285 PAO leaders (7.7%) perceived pressure to conform their positions to the interests of corporate donors. Conclusions and Relevance: Patient advocacy organizations engage in wide-ranging health activities. Although most PAOs receive modest funding from industry, a minority receive substantial industry support, raising added concerns about independence. Many respondents report a need to improve their conflict of interest policies to help maintain public trust.

Content and Outcomes of Social Work Consultation for Patients with Diabetes in Primary Care.

PURPOSE: Social workers are positioned to address social determinants of health (SDHs), but their specific roles in outpatient primary care practice have not been well described. We aimed to describe needs of patients with diabetes addressed during social work (SW) consultations and their impact on disease control. METHODS: This study was a retrospective review of electronic medical records of 977 patients with diabetes with a SW consultation at 3 primary care internal medicine sites in 2014. Diabetes and cardiovascular (CV) risk factor control were assessed before and after the SW encounter. Patient subgroups with uncontrolled diabetes or CV risk factors were compared with propensity-matched patients without a SW encounter. Of the 977 records, 300 were randomly selected for abstraction of needs addressed at the SW consultation using SDH categories established by Wilkinson and Marmot. RESULTS: Patient insurance status included 52% Medicare and 32% Medicaid. The SDHs most often addressed were social gradient (67%; obtaining medications or health insurance) and social support (25%). Among our total population, there were no significant improvements in glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, or body mass index at least 3 months after the first SW consultation. For patients with uncontrolled diabetes (HbA1c >9% or LDL cholesterol >130 mg/dl), HbA1c improved by 1.5 versus 1.1% for matched controls (P = .03) and LDL improved by 37.7 versus 21.3 mg/dl for matched controls (P = .002). CONCLUSIONS: In this sample with a preponderance of Medicare and Medicaid patients, social workers most often assisted patients with diabetes in obtaining medications or health insurance. For patients with uncontrolled diabetes or cholesterol, a temporal association between SW consultation and improved disease control was noted.

Gender Differences in Physicians' Financial Ties to Industry: A Study of National Disclosure Data.

BACKGROUND: Academic literature extensively documents gender disparities in the medical profession with regard to salary, promotion, and government funded research. However, gender differences in the value of financial ties to industry have not been adequately studied despite industry's increasing contribution to income and research funding to physicians in the U.S. METHODS & FINDINGS: We analyzed publicly reported financial relationships among 747,603 physicians and 432 pharmaceutical, device and biomaterials companies. Demographic and payment information were analyzed using hierarchical regression models to determine if statistically significant gender differences exist in physician-industry interactions regarding financial ties, controlling for key covariates. In 2011, 432 biomedical companies made an excess of $17,991,000 in payments to 220,908 physicians. Of these physicians, 75.1% were male. Female physicians, on average, received fewer total dollars (-$3,598.63, p<0.001) per person than men. Additionally, female physicians received significantly lower amounts for meals (-$41.80, p<0.001), education (-$1,893.14, p<0.001), speaker fees (-$2,898.44, p<0.001), and sponsored research (-$15,049.62, p=0.05). For total dollars, an interaction between gender and institutional reputation was statistically significant, implying that the differences between women and men differed based on industry's preference for an institution, with larger differences at higher reputation institutions. CONCLUSIONS: Female physicians receive significantly lower compensation for similarly described activities than their male counterparts after controlling for key covariates. As regulations lead to increased transparency regarding these relationships, efforts to standardize compensation should be considered to promote equitable opportunities for all physicians.

Patient advocacy organizations: institutional conflicts of interest, trust, and trustworthiness.

Patient advocacy organizations (PAOs) advocate for increased research funding and policy changes and provide services to patients and their families. Given their credibility and political clout, PAOs are often successful in changing policies, increasing research funding, and increasing public awareness of medical conditions and the problems of their constituents. In order to advance their missions, PAOs accept funding, frequently from pharmaceutical firms. Industry funding can help PAOs advance their goals but can also create conflicts of interest (COI). Research indicates that bias may occur, even among well-meaning professionals, when people and organizations have financial COI. Industry funding may therefore influence PAOs to act in ways that favor the interests of their donors, which may increase the risk of harm to patients. This article extends the analysis developed in the Institute of Medicine report, Conflicts of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice, and applies the analysis to understand PAOs and their relationships with industry. It argues that the preferred goal of institutional COI policies should not be to promote trust, but to promote trustworthiness and appropriately placed trust.

A randomized study of how physicians interpret research funding disclosures.

BACKGROUND: The effects of clinical-trial funding on the interpretation of trial results are poorly understood. We examined how such support affects physicians' reactions to trials with a high, medium, or low level of methodologic rigor. METHODS: We presented 503 board-certified internists with abstracts that we designed describing clinical trials of three hypothetical drugs. The trials had high, medium, or low methodologic rigor, and each report included one of three support disclosures: funding from a pharmaceutical company, NIH funding, or none. For both factors studied (rigor and funding), one of the three possible variations was randomly selected for inclusion in the abstracts. Follow-up questions assessed the physicians' impressions of the trials' rigor, their confidence in the results, and their willingness to prescribe the drugs. RESULTS: The 269 respondents (53.5% response rate) perceived the level of study rigor accurately. Physicians reported that they would be less willing to prescribe drugs tested in low-rigor trials than those tested in medium-rigor trials (odds ratio, 0.64; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.46 to 0.89; P=0.008) and would be more willing to prescribe drugs tested in high-rigor trials than those tested in medium-rigor trials (odds ratio, 3.07; 95% CI, 2.18 to 4.32; P<0.001). Disclosure of industry funding, as compared with no disclosure of funding, led physicians to downgrade the rigor of a trial (odds ratio, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.46 to 0.87; P=0.006), their confidence in the results (odds ratio, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.51 to 0.98; P=0.04), and their willingness to prescribe the hypothetical drugs (odds ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.49 to 0.94; P=0.02). Physicians were half as willing to prescribe drugs studied in industry-funded trials as they were to prescribe drugs studied in NIH-funded trials (odds ratio, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.37 to 0.71; P<0.001). These effects were consistent across all levels of methodologic rigor. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians discriminate among trials of varying degrees of rigor, but industry sponsorship negatively influences their perception of methodologic quality and reduces their willingness to believe and act on trial findings, independently of the trial's quality. These effects may influence the translation of clinical research into practice.

Relationships between authorship contributions and authors' industry financial ties among oncology clinical trials.

PURPOSE To test the hypothesis that authors who play key scientific roles in oncology clinical trials, and who therefore have increased influence over the design, analysis, interpretation or reporting of trials, are more likely than those who do not play such roles to have financial ties to industry. METHODS Data were abstracted from all trials (n = 235) of drugs or biologic agents published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology between January 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007. Article-level data included sponsorship, age group (adult v pediatric), phase, single versus multicenter, country (United States v other), and number of authors. Author-level data (n = 2,927) included financial ties (eg, employment, consulting) and performance of key scientific roles (ie, conception/design, analysis/interpretation, or manuscript writing). Associations between performance of key roles and financial ties, adjusting for article-level covariates, were examined using generalized linear mixed models. Results One thousand eight hundred eighty-one authors (64%) reported performing at least one key role, and 842 authors (29%) reported at least one financial tie. Authors who reported performing a key role were more likely than other authors to report financial ties to industry (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 4.3; 99% CI, 3.0 to 6.0; P < .0001). The association was stronger among trials with, compared with those without, industry funding (OR, 5.0 [99% CI, 3.4 to 7.5] v OR, 2.5 [99% CI, 1.3 to 4.8]), but was present regardless of sponsorship. CONCLUSION Authors who perform key roles in the conception and design, analysis, and interpretation, or reporting of oncology clinical trials are more likely than authors who do not perform such roles to have financial ties to industry.