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Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: A Year Out

One year ago, shortly after the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we published our initial experience with telemedicine. We showed that during the early pandemic, there was a dramatic shift to telemedicine and that 70% of our patients would decline telemedicine in favor of a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ohlstein, Jason F, Ahmed, Omar G, Garner, Jordan, Takashima, Masayoshi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8794398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35111474
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.20794
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author Ohlstein, Jason F
Ahmed, Omar G
Garner, Jordan
Takashima, Masayoshi
author_facet Ohlstein, Jason F
Ahmed, Omar G
Garner, Jordan
Takashima, Masayoshi
author_sort Ohlstein, Jason F
collection PubMed
description One year ago, shortly after the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we published our initial experience with telemedicine. We showed that during the early pandemic, there was a dramatic shift to telemedicine and that 70% of our patients would decline telemedicine in favor of an in-person visit. As clinical limitations and stay-at-home orders relaxed, we sought to define how we have used telemedicine since. After the initial month of the pandemic, our utilization of telemedicine fell to an average of only 5% of visits over the past year. Nearly 80% of all telemedicine visits were routine follow-up visits, with its usage being unaffected by local policy and pandemic surges. The usefulness and applications of telemedicine have been well described; however, after our initial reliance on telemedicine, its use has been minimal. Moving forward, attention will need to focus on innovation and expanding comprehensive virtual examinations for otolaryngology to fully embrace this technology.
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spelling pubmed-87943982022-02-01 Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: A Year Out Ohlstein, Jason F Ahmed, Omar G Garner, Jordan Takashima, Masayoshi Cureus Otolaryngology One year ago, shortly after the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we published our initial experience with telemedicine. We showed that during the early pandemic, there was a dramatic shift to telemedicine and that 70% of our patients would decline telemedicine in favor of an in-person visit. As clinical limitations and stay-at-home orders relaxed, we sought to define how we have used telemedicine since. After the initial month of the pandemic, our utilization of telemedicine fell to an average of only 5% of visits over the past year. Nearly 80% of all telemedicine visits were routine follow-up visits, with its usage being unaffected by local policy and pandemic surges. The usefulness and applications of telemedicine have been well described; however, after our initial reliance on telemedicine, its use has been minimal. Moving forward, attention will need to focus on innovation and expanding comprehensive virtual examinations for otolaryngology to fully embrace this technology. Cureus 2021-12-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8794398/ /pubmed/35111474 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.20794 Text en Copyright © 2021, Ohlstein et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Otolaryngology
Ohlstein, Jason F
Ahmed, Omar G
Garner, Jordan
Takashima, Masayoshi
Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: A Year Out
title Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: A Year Out
title_full Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: A Year Out
title_fullStr Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: A Year Out
title_full_unstemmed Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: A Year Out
title_short Telemedicine in Otolaryngology in the COVID-19 Era: A Year Out
title_sort telemedicine in otolaryngology in the covid-19 era: a year out
topic Otolaryngology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8794398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35111474
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.20794
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