How to improve remote health consultations

Dr Jia Liu is a Lecturer at the GKT School of Medical Education, King’s College London, with a strong interest in clinical communication. As one of the authors of a new course on the KHP Learning Hub - Communicating with patients remotely – she shared what inspired her to launch the course and gives a preview of what students and healthcare professionals can expect to gain from completing the course.  

The problem with remote consultations

Three years ago I had a video consultation with my GP to check if my three-year-old son had chickenpox. I uploaded a few photos beforehand and met the GP online. Technically, everything worked perfectly. But when the consultation ended, I still felt worried. Something was missing - and I was left with more uncertainty than reassurance. 

As a Lecturer in Clinical Communication at King’s College London, that moment stayed with me. Remote consultations are now embedded across our health system, yet many healthcare professionals have not been formally trained in how to communicate effectively in these formats. 

This realisation led me to develop Communicating with Patients Remotely: Benefits, Challenges and Pathways to Improving Patient-Centred Care — an online course, delivered through King’s Health Partners, designed to support more thoughtful, inclusive and patient-centred digital practice. 

Why have remote consultations become the standard 

During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, remote consultations rapidly shifted from contingency measure to routine practice not only in the UK but also globally. 

The benefits are clear: improved accessibility for many patients, flexibility, reduced travel burden, and service efficiency. But through my research and teaching, I repeatedly heard a more complex story. Clinicians described uncertainty: how do you express empathy without physical presence? How do you pick up non-verbal cues through a screen? How do you manage silence on the telephone? Patients described mixed experiences. Some valued convenience. Others reported feeling rushed, less heard, or digitally excluded. For individuals facing language barriers, cultural differences, disability, or socioeconomic disadvantage, remote consulting could unintentionally widen inequalities. 

Over time, I began to realise that remote consulting is not simply “face-to-face minus the room.” It subtly reshapes the dynamics of power, rapport, trust, and even clinical reasoning. The absence of physical co-presence changes what we notice, how we listen, and how patients experience being heard. 

In a workshop discussion, a colleague once said that comparing in-person and digital consultations is like comparing apples and pears. That metaphor stayed with me. Remote and in-person consutlations may belong to the same family of clinical encounters, but they are fundamentally different environments, therefore requiring us to develop different habits, sensitivities and skills. 

Drawing on a qualitative thematic synthesis, innovation (I used AI to develop the animation- a fun experience), and collaboration with health and education colleagues, and most importantly with our wonderful medical students, this course was developed to address those challenges directly. It explores: 

• The relational impact of remote communication 
• Common pitfalls and hidden inequities 
• Patient/clinician perspectives and lived experiences 
• Practical strategies to maintain empathy, clarity and shared decision-making 
• Reflective tools for improving everyday practice 

Rather than focusing only on technical competence, the course invites participants, especially those new to remote consultations, to critically reflect on how digital healthcare may strengthen or compromise patient-centred care, and to consider strategies for safeguarding it. 

Is webside manner as important as bedside manner

Developing this course reinforced something fundamental: technology does not reduce the importance of communication - it magnifies it. When clinicians approach remote consultations intentionally, such as by structuring conversations clearly, checking understanding explicitly, acknowledging limitations of the format, and inviting patient preferences, the quality of interaction improves significantly. This thinking informed the development of our ICE-T model, alongside a central argument: webside manner is a core clinical competence. Just as bedside manner shapes trust and reassurance, webside manner— the ability to convey empathy, presence, and clarity through a screen — determines the quality of digital encounters. It is not an optional extra, it is foundational to safe and compassionate remote practice. 

Improving remote health consultations 

My key takeaway from this project is simple: treat digital communication as a clinical skill. Reflect on it. Practise it. Seek feedback on it. Use frameworks like ICE-T to build deliberate habits rather than relying on instinct alone. Small, thoughtful adjustments can transform the patient experience. 

As digital healthcare evolves, our commitment to compassionate, inclusive, and patient-centred practice must evolve with it. 

Acknowledgements and Further Information 

This course builds on collaborative work in digital clinical communication education and insights from patients, students, and clinical colleagues across King’s College London. I am deeply grateful to my dear colleagues Dr Bernadette O’Neill, Yvonne Batson-Wright, and Dr Anna Collini for their thoughtful feedback and encouragement throughout. I would also like to thank Dr Rebecca Payne and Professor Trisha Greenhalgh (University of Oxford) for their invaluable guidance as advisors. 

Most importantly, this project would not have been possible without our wonderful medical students, Bavesh Jawahar and Shivam Mehta (now a doctor), whose creativity, commitment, and collaboration brought the course to life. 

Find out more about the Communicating with patients remotely course and enrol on the KHP Learning Hub. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with Dr Liu at jia.liu@kcl.ac.uk.