The Use of Telemedicine in Surgical Care: a Systematic Review

INTRODUCTION: Telemedicine describes a healthcare service where physicians communicate with patients remotely using telecommunication technologies. Telemedicine is being used to provide pre-/postoperative surgical consultation and monitoring as well as surgical education. AIM: Our purpose was to investigate the broad range of telemedicine technologies used in surgical care. MATERIAL AND METHODS: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and Science Direct were searched for available literature from inception to March 30, 2018 with no language restrictions. The search terms included: cell phones, telemedicine, telecommunications, video, online, videoconferencing, remote consultation, surgery, preoperative, perioperative, postoperative, and surgical procedures. Studies were included if they used telemedicine in surgery for pre-, peri-, or post-surgery periods, and if they compared traditional surgical care with surgical telemedicine. We excluded case series, case reports, and conference abstracts from our review. RESULTS: A total of 24 studies were included in our review. The study found that the use of telemedicine in preoperative assessment and diagnosis, evaluation after surgery and follow-up visits to be beneficial. Patients reported benefits to using telemedicine such as avoiding unnecessary trips to hospitals, saving time and reducing the number of working days missed. CONCLUSION: Telemedicine in surgical care can provide benefits to both patients and clinicians.