A small study of U.S. veterans suggests that they would happily forgo in-person doctors’ visits for their virtual counterparts after surgery. As long as doctors didn’t miss any infections that popped up after surgery, most patients would prefer the telehealth option.

“These kinds of methods are really important in the climate we’re in now,” said lead author Dr. Michael Vella, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “So I think anything you can do to save money, see more patients and improve access to care is really important.”

Past research has found that virtual visits may be useful in the treatment of chronic conditions and after surgery, but less is known about patients preferences for these types of visits, according to Vella and his colleagues.

The study team evaluated data collected over several months in 2014 from 23 veterans, all but one of them men, who were seen three times after a simple operation that would require only a night or so in the hospital. One visit was via video, the second was via telephone and the third was an in-person office visit.

Overall, 69% of the participants said they preferred a telehealth visit over the traditional in-office visit.The researchers found that no post-operation infections were missed during the video or telephone visits.

Overall, 69% of the participants said they preferred a telehealth visit over the traditional in-office visit. Unsurprisingly, those who preferred the telehealth visit tended to live farther away from the hospital than those who would rather come into the office.

Vella cautioned that the study was small, and that it can’t assess how telehealth visits would work for patients who have undergone more complex surgeries. He added that future research showing the results of the real-world implementation of telehealth will provide more information on its safety…

[Via: Reuters, study was published in JAMA Surgery]