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The role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during COVID-19 outbreak: A single centre experience
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the provision of skin cancer treatment in the UK. To preserve the service, the department transformed the outpatient skin cancer clinic into teleclinic service. This study examines the safety and efficacy of a teleclinic consultation, in comparison...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7973078/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33781705 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjps.2021.03.003 |
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author | Koysombat, Kantida Plonczak, Agata M West, Christian A |
author_facet | Koysombat, Kantida Plonczak, Agata M West, Christian A |
author_sort | Koysombat, Kantida |
collection | PubMed |
description | The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the provision of skin cancer treatment in the UK. To preserve the service, the department transformed the outpatient skin cancer clinic into teleclinic service. This study examines the safety and efficacy of a teleclinic consultation, in comparison to a face-to-face consultation. We assessed efficacy in terms of accuracy of the clinical diagnosis in comparison to the histopathological result and whether treatment was designated the appropriate clinical priority/urgency. A total of 120 lesions in 98 patients were assessed, 55 patients in the face-to-face clinic cohort, and 43 patients in the teleclinic cohort. Diagnostic accuracy was better in face-to-face clinic compared to teleclinic; 85.0% and 63.6% respectively (χ(2) (1, N = 120) = 7.35, p = 0.0067). The accuracy of listing patients on the correct pathway was slightly higher for teleclinic patients. Of the teleclinic patients listed through the urgent pathway, 45.7% justified their urgent status, compared with 37.5% of those listed urgent in face-to-face clinic (p = 0.67). For those listed as routine, 100% of teleclinic patients were listed appropriately whereas the accuracy was 96.8% for the face-to-face clinic counterpart. In conclusion, despite teleclinic having slightly reduced diagnostic accuracy, teleclinics show comparable accuracy in listing patients to urgent or routine skin cancer pathways. It offers convenience to patients in addition to reducing time to treatment and cost effectiveness. The lessons learned in the pandemic can be applied to the post-COVID healthcare environment. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7973078 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-79730782021-03-19 The role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during COVID-19 outbreak: A single centre experience Koysombat, Kantida Plonczak, Agata M West, Christian A J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg Correspondence and Communications The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the provision of skin cancer treatment in the UK. To preserve the service, the department transformed the outpatient skin cancer clinic into teleclinic service. This study examines the safety and efficacy of a teleclinic consultation, in comparison to a face-to-face consultation. We assessed efficacy in terms of accuracy of the clinical diagnosis in comparison to the histopathological result and whether treatment was designated the appropriate clinical priority/urgency. A total of 120 lesions in 98 patients were assessed, 55 patients in the face-to-face clinic cohort, and 43 patients in the teleclinic cohort. Diagnostic accuracy was better in face-to-face clinic compared to teleclinic; 85.0% and 63.6% respectively (χ(2) (1, N = 120) = 7.35, p = 0.0067). The accuracy of listing patients on the correct pathway was slightly higher for teleclinic patients. Of the teleclinic patients listed through the urgent pathway, 45.7% justified their urgent status, compared with 37.5% of those listed urgent in face-to-face clinic (p = 0.67). For those listed as routine, 100% of teleclinic patients were listed appropriately whereas the accuracy was 96.8% for the face-to-face clinic counterpart. In conclusion, despite teleclinic having slightly reduced diagnostic accuracy, teleclinics show comparable accuracy in listing patients to urgent or routine skin cancer pathways. It offers convenience to patients in addition to reducing time to treatment and cost effectiveness. The lessons learned in the pandemic can be applied to the post-COVID healthcare environment. British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2021-08 2021-03-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7973078/ /pubmed/33781705 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjps.2021.03.003 Text en © 2021 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Correspondence and Communications Koysombat, Kantida Plonczak, Agata M West, Christian A The role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during COVID-19 outbreak: A single centre experience |
title | The role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during COVID-19 outbreak: A single centre experience |
title_full | The role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during COVID-19 outbreak: A single centre experience |
title_fullStr | The role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during COVID-19 outbreak: A single centre experience |
title_full_unstemmed | The role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during COVID-19 outbreak: A single centre experience |
title_short | The role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during COVID-19 outbreak: A single centre experience |
title_sort | role of teleconsultation in the management of suspected skin malignancy in plastic surgery during covid-19 outbreak: a single centre experience |
topic | Correspondence and Communications |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7973078/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33781705 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjps.2021.03.003 |
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