The Saskatchewan Health Quality Council held a panel with three physicians and two patient partners recently to discuss virtual care. CEO Tracey Sherin says the patients said they see virtual care as part of the the tool box for health care, not a replacement. She says the panel revealed the positives of virtual include helping patients avoid long distance traveling, allowing them to stay closer to home, and it provides faster access to health care than before.

Sherin says physicians want to see virtual care continue as an option, especially after they had to quickly adapt during the pandemic. She explains that a lot of the barriers that existed before the pandemic, whether it was a technological barrier or something else, physicians were able to remove very quickly and it demonstrated a lot of cooperation to move forward with virtual care so quickly.

She says virtual care can encompass a variety of things including phone calls and video conferencing, that allow physicians to provide remote care, but the biggest concern was proper access to high-speed internet that can handle the video conferencing demands. Going forward, Sherin says, part of the learning process will be figuring out what interactions are more appropriate for virtual care and what need to be face-to-face.