Hybrid versus virtual clinical management of multiple sclerosis

Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, health and medical research has been vastly affected, to an extent that forced the implementation of tele-medicine and virtual research.
In a cohort of 207 people with MS, it was demonstrated that remote visits were more feasible than in-person clinic visits for both researchers and participants/and caregivers and had a lower carbon footprint (all Ps<0.05). Furthermore, remote visits were non-inferior to in-clinic visits (P<0.01). The percentage of people with disease worsening/improvement/stability remained similar for both annual remote evaluations and in-clinic assessments, over time.
According to the authors, remote evaluation and clinical management of disease for research is cost-saving for all parties, and projects a reasonable disease trajectory over time.