Experience with Obese Patients Followed via Telemedicine in a Latin American Tertiary Care Medical Center

Abstract

Background: Obesity is a major public health concern worldwide. Latin America has experienced rapid growth in obesity incidence during the last few decades. Driven by confinement measures, a telemedicine program was implemented in March 2020 to give continuity to obese patients’ care through a weight loss program led by the endocrinology department in a tertiary care medical center in Latin America. Objective: This study aimed to describe the clinical experience of using digital health for monitoring and attention of obese patients and description of weight change outcomes of these patients followed via telemedicine during March 2020–December 2020. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted including 202 patients. A Skillings-Mack test was performed to conduct a subgroup analysis of the medians of the weight over the follow-up period, and a mixed multiple linear regression model was performed to estimate the expected average change in weight over time Results: We observed good adherence to the program, represented by a weight loss of −4.1 kg at three months of follow-up, which was maintained even during the sixth month of follow-up. Conclusions: Digital Health strategies such as telemedicine can be a helpful tool for both patients and health care providers to support the continuity of care and showing satisfactory results in the management of obese patients.