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Implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in Italy
PURPOSE: To assess the use of telemedicine with phone-call visits as a practical tool to follow-up with patients affected by urological benign diseases, whose clinic visits had been cancelled during the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Patients were contacted via phone-call and a speci...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7775638/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33385246 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00345-020-03536-x |
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author | Checcucci, Enrico De Luca, Stefano Alessio, Paolo Verri, Paolo Granato, Stefano De Cillis, Sabrina Amparore, Daniele Sica, Michele Piramide, Federico Piana, Alberto Volpi, Gabriele Manfredi, Matteo Balestra, Gabriella Autorino, Riccardo Fiori, Cristian Porpiglia, Francesco |
author_facet | Checcucci, Enrico De Luca, Stefano Alessio, Paolo Verri, Paolo Granato, Stefano De Cillis, Sabrina Amparore, Daniele Sica, Michele Piramide, Federico Piana, Alberto Volpi, Gabriele Manfredi, Matteo Balestra, Gabriella Autorino, Riccardo Fiori, Cristian Porpiglia, Francesco |
author_sort | Checcucci, Enrico |
collection | PubMed |
description | PURPOSE: To assess the use of telemedicine with phone-call visits as a practical tool to follow-up with patients affected by urological benign diseases, whose clinic visits had been cancelled during the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Patients were contacted via phone-call and a specific questionnaire was administered to evaluate the health status of these patients and to identify those who needed an “in-person” ambulatory visit due to the worsening of their condition. Secondarily, the patients’ perception of a potential shift towards a “telemedicine” approach to the management of their condition and to indirectly evaluate their desire to return to “in-person” clinic visits. RESULTS: 607 were contacted by phone-call. 87.5% (531/607) of the cases showed stability of the symptoms so no clinic in-person or emergency visits were needed. 81.5% (495/607) of patients were more concerned about the risk of contagion than their urological condition. The median score for phone visit comprehensibility and ease of communication of exams was 5/5; whilst patients’ perception of phone visits’ usefulness was scored 4/5. 53% (322/607) of the interviewees didn’t own the basic supports required to be able to perform a real telemedicine consult according to the required standards. CONCLUSION: Telemedicine approach limits the number of unnecessary accesses to medical facilities and represents an important tool for the limitation of the risk of transmission of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. However, infrastructures, health workers and patients should reach out to a computerization process to allow a wider diffusion of more advanced forms of telemedicine, such as televisit. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00345-020-03536-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7775638 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77756382021-01-04 Implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in Italy Checcucci, Enrico De Luca, Stefano Alessio, Paolo Verri, Paolo Granato, Stefano De Cillis, Sabrina Amparore, Daniele Sica, Michele Piramide, Federico Piana, Alberto Volpi, Gabriele Manfredi, Matteo Balestra, Gabriella Autorino, Riccardo Fiori, Cristian Porpiglia, Francesco World J Urol Original Article PURPOSE: To assess the use of telemedicine with phone-call visits as a practical tool to follow-up with patients affected by urological benign diseases, whose clinic visits had been cancelled during the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Patients were contacted via phone-call and a specific questionnaire was administered to evaluate the health status of these patients and to identify those who needed an “in-person” ambulatory visit due to the worsening of their condition. Secondarily, the patients’ perception of a potential shift towards a “telemedicine” approach to the management of their condition and to indirectly evaluate their desire to return to “in-person” clinic visits. RESULTS: 607 were contacted by phone-call. 87.5% (531/607) of the cases showed stability of the symptoms so no clinic in-person or emergency visits were needed. 81.5% (495/607) of patients were more concerned about the risk of contagion than their urological condition. The median score for phone visit comprehensibility and ease of communication of exams was 5/5; whilst patients’ perception of phone visits’ usefulness was scored 4/5. 53% (322/607) of the interviewees didn’t own the basic supports required to be able to perform a real telemedicine consult according to the required standards. CONCLUSION: Telemedicine approach limits the number of unnecessary accesses to medical facilities and represents an important tool for the limitation of the risk of transmission of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. However, infrastructures, health workers and patients should reach out to a computerization process to allow a wider diffusion of more advanced forms of telemedicine, such as televisit. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00345-020-03536-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-01-01 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC7775638/ /pubmed/33385246 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00345-020-03536-x Text en © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. |
spellingShingle | Original Article Checcucci, Enrico De Luca, Stefano Alessio, Paolo Verri, Paolo Granato, Stefano De Cillis, Sabrina Amparore, Daniele Sica, Michele Piramide, Federico Piana, Alberto Volpi, Gabriele Manfredi, Matteo Balestra, Gabriella Autorino, Riccardo Fiori, Cristian Porpiglia, Francesco Implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in Italy |
title | Implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in Italy |
title_full | Implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in Italy |
title_fullStr | Implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in Italy |
title_full_unstemmed | Implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in Italy |
title_short | Implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in Italy |
title_sort | implementing telemedicine for the management of benign urologic conditions: a single centre experience in italy |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7775638/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33385246 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00345-020-03536-x |
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