Cargando…
Tele-consultations and electronic medical records driven remote patient care: Responding to the COVID-19 lockdown in India
PURPOSE: To describe the experience of tele-consultations addressed at the centre of excellence of a multi-tier ophthalmology hospital network in India during the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. METHODS: This cross-sectional hospital-based study included 7,008 tele-consultations prese...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Wolters Kluwer - Medknow
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7508108/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32461415 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/ijo.IJO_1089_20 |
Sumario: | PURPOSE: To describe the experience of tele-consultations addressed at the centre of excellence of a multi-tier ophthalmology hospital network in India during the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. METHODS: This cross-sectional hospital-based study included 7,008 tele-consultations presenting between March 23(rd) and April 19(th) 2020. A three-level protocol was implemented to triage the calls. The data of patient queries were collected using a Google Form/Sheets and the tele-calls were returned using the patient information retrieved from the electronic medical record system. RESULTS: Overall, 7,008 tele-calls were addressed, of which 2,805 (40.02%) patients where a clinical-related query was answered were included for analysis. The most common queries were related to redness/pain/watering/blurring of vision (31.52%), closely followed by usage of medications (31.05%). The majority of the queries were directed to the department of cornea (34.15%), followed by retina (24.74%). Less than one-fifth of the patients were from the lower socio-economic class (16.08%) and one-fourth were new patients (23.96%). The most common advice given to the patient was related to management of medications (54.15%) followed by appointment related (17.79%). Emergency requests requiring further evaluation by an ophthalmologist accounted for a small percentage (16.36%) of patients. CONCLUSION: Tracking of tele-consultations and access to patient information from the electronic medical records enabled a timely response in an ongoing lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current experience provided valuable insights to the possibility of managing patient follow-up visits remotely in the future. |
---|