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Telemedicine in Times of the Pandemic Produced by COVID-19: Implementation of a Teleconsultation Protocol in a Hospital Emergency Department

Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Spain, almost 22% of healthcare professionals have been infected. Among the main causes are exposure during the care of suspected patients and asymptomatic patients, which caused a greater lack of protection in some cases, and to the global shortage o...

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Autores principales: Lopez-Villegas, Antonio, Maroto-Martin, Salvador, Baena-Lopez, Miguel Angel, Garzon-Miralles, Antonio, Bautista-Mesa, Rafael Jesús, Peiro, Salvador, Leal-Costa, Cesar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7712359/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32977699
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8040357
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author Lopez-Villegas, Antonio
Maroto-Martin, Salvador
Baena-Lopez, Miguel Angel
Garzon-Miralles, Antonio
Bautista-Mesa, Rafael Jesús
Peiro, Salvador
Leal-Costa, Cesar
author_facet Lopez-Villegas, Antonio
Maroto-Martin, Salvador
Baena-Lopez, Miguel Angel
Garzon-Miralles, Antonio
Bautista-Mesa, Rafael Jesús
Peiro, Salvador
Leal-Costa, Cesar
author_sort Lopez-Villegas, Antonio
collection PubMed
description Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Spain, almost 22% of healthcare professionals have been infected. Among the main causes are exposure during the care of suspected patients and asymptomatic patients, which caused a greater lack of protection in some cases, and to the global shortage of personal protective equipment due to the strong demand for it. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a teleconsultation protocol with patients who had respiratory symptoms in the reduction of the consumption of personal protective equipment (PPE) in a hospital emergency service (HES) during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a descriptive and retrospective study that analyzes the implementation of a teleconsultation protocol with patients with respiratory problems treated in the HES at the Hospital de Poniente (Almeria), between 18 March and 30 April 2020. In the selected study period, 5353 patients were treated in the HES of the Hospital de Poniente; of these, 15.43% showed respiratory symptoms and were referred to the Respiratory Circuit, of which 42.2% did so via teleconsultation. Sixty-six cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed, 57.6% were male, and the median age was 71 years old. The main disease related was pneumonia (89.4%), symptoms more frequent were cough (77.3%), fever (77.3%), and dyspnea (60.6%). Lastly, 56.1% of the patients that attended had one or more comorbidities, high blood pressure (53%), and diabetes (36.4%), which became the main risk factors. The results showed that the implementation of teleconsultation in the HES reduced the possibility of infection and allowed for a more efficient consumption of personal protective equipment.
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spelling pubmed-77123592020-12-04 Telemedicine in Times of the Pandemic Produced by COVID-19: Implementation of a Teleconsultation Protocol in a Hospital Emergency Department Lopez-Villegas, Antonio Maroto-Martin, Salvador Baena-Lopez, Miguel Angel Garzon-Miralles, Antonio Bautista-Mesa, Rafael Jesús Peiro, Salvador Leal-Costa, Cesar Healthcare (Basel) Article Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Spain, almost 22% of healthcare professionals have been infected. Among the main causes are exposure during the care of suspected patients and asymptomatic patients, which caused a greater lack of protection in some cases, and to the global shortage of personal protective equipment due to the strong demand for it. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a teleconsultation protocol with patients who had respiratory symptoms in the reduction of the consumption of personal protective equipment (PPE) in a hospital emergency service (HES) during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a descriptive and retrospective study that analyzes the implementation of a teleconsultation protocol with patients with respiratory problems treated in the HES at the Hospital de Poniente (Almeria), between 18 March and 30 April 2020. In the selected study period, 5353 patients were treated in the HES of the Hospital de Poniente; of these, 15.43% showed respiratory symptoms and were referred to the Respiratory Circuit, of which 42.2% did so via teleconsultation. Sixty-six cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed, 57.6% were male, and the median age was 71 years old. The main disease related was pneumonia (89.4%), symptoms more frequent were cough (77.3%), fever (77.3%), and dyspnea (60.6%). Lastly, 56.1% of the patients that attended had one or more comorbidities, high blood pressure (53%), and diabetes (36.4%), which became the main risk factors. The results showed that the implementation of teleconsultation in the HES reduced the possibility of infection and allowed for a more efficient consumption of personal protective equipment. MDPI 2020-09-23 /pmc/articles/PMC7712359/ /pubmed/32977699 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8040357 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lopez-Villegas, Antonio
Maroto-Martin, Salvador
Baena-Lopez, Miguel Angel
Garzon-Miralles, Antonio
Bautista-Mesa, Rafael Jesús
Peiro, Salvador
Leal-Costa, Cesar
Telemedicine in Times of the Pandemic Produced by COVID-19: Implementation of a Teleconsultation Protocol in a Hospital Emergency Department
title Telemedicine in Times of the Pandemic Produced by COVID-19: Implementation of a Teleconsultation Protocol in a Hospital Emergency Department
title_full Telemedicine in Times of the Pandemic Produced by COVID-19: Implementation of a Teleconsultation Protocol in a Hospital Emergency Department
title_fullStr Telemedicine in Times of the Pandemic Produced by COVID-19: Implementation of a Teleconsultation Protocol in a Hospital Emergency Department
title_full_unstemmed Telemedicine in Times of the Pandemic Produced by COVID-19: Implementation of a Teleconsultation Protocol in a Hospital Emergency Department
title_short Telemedicine in Times of the Pandemic Produced by COVID-19: Implementation of a Teleconsultation Protocol in a Hospital Emergency Department
title_sort telemedicine in times of the pandemic produced by covid-19: implementation of a teleconsultation protocol in a hospital emergency department
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7712359/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32977699
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8040357
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