Video consultations during Covid-19: repairing the lack of embodied encounters with patients in outpatient clinics

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced hospitals to adapt and rethink how they treat patients to limit the spread of the virus and avoid overloading during spikes of admission. Danish hospitals have implemented video consultations which enable patients and clinicians to see and talk to each other without the patients coming to the hospital. Based on observations of clinicians’ video consultations with patients, as well as observations of online hospital meetings regarding virtual outpatient clinics, this paper explores clinicians’ experiences with adopting video consultations. The paper unfolds what this new form of consultation repairs, leaves behind, and engenders. Finally, the paper speculates about how the digital transformation might anchor itself in the healthcare sector, also in a post-pandemic future.