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Challenges of Telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the decrease of in-person visits to reduce the risk of virus transmission. Telemedicine is an efficient communication tool employed between healthcare providers and patients that prevents the risk of exposure to infected persons. However, telemedicine u...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9351100/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35922817 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12911-022-01952-0 |
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author | Ftouni, Racha AlJardali, Baraa Hamdanieh, Maya Ftouni, Louna Salem, Nariman |
author_facet | Ftouni, Racha AlJardali, Baraa Hamdanieh, Maya Ftouni, Louna Salem, Nariman |
author_sort | Ftouni, Racha |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the decrease of in-person visits to reduce the risk of virus transmission. Telemedicine is an efficient communication tool employed between healthcare providers and patients that prevents the risk of exposure to infected persons. However, telemedicine use is not infallible; its users reported multiple issues that complicated the expansion of this technology. So, this systematic review aimed to explore the barriers and challenges of telemedicine use during the pandemic and to propose solutions for improving future use. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) statement. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, Embase, and Science Direct were used to look for articles addressing barriers and challenges, in addition to articles proposing solutions. Studies were screened by title and abstract, followed by a full-text review. Risk of bias assessment was done using Critical Appraisal Skills Program for qualitative studies, Newcastle–Ottawa Scale for cross-sectional studies, and A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews for systematic reviews. After the extraction of data, a narrative synthesis and analysis of the outcomes were performed. RESULTS: Among 1194 papers identified, only 27 studies were included. Barriers and challenges were assembled under 7 categories: technical aspects, privacy, data confidentiality and reimbursement, physical examination and diagnostics, special populations, training of healthcare providers and patients, doctor-patient relationship, and acceptability. Poor internet connection and lack of universal access to technology were among the technical barriers. Concerns about patient privacy and reimbursement hindered the use of telemedicine too. Physical examination and certain procedures were impossible to perform via telemedicine. Training both healthcare providers and patients was deficient. The doctor-patient relationship was troubled by telemedicine, and both healthcare providers and patients were reluctant to use telemedicine. CONCLUSION: Widespread use of telemedicine is still hampered by various barriers and challenges. Healthcare providers should work with various stakeholders to implement the proposed solutions. More research and policy changes are essential to optimize telemedicine utilization. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12911-022-01952-0. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9351100 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-93511002022-08-05 Challenges of Telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review Ftouni, Racha AlJardali, Baraa Hamdanieh, Maya Ftouni, Louna Salem, Nariman BMC Med Inform Decis Mak Research BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the decrease of in-person visits to reduce the risk of virus transmission. Telemedicine is an efficient communication tool employed between healthcare providers and patients that prevents the risk of exposure to infected persons. However, telemedicine use is not infallible; its users reported multiple issues that complicated the expansion of this technology. So, this systematic review aimed to explore the barriers and challenges of telemedicine use during the pandemic and to propose solutions for improving future use. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) statement. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, Embase, and Science Direct were used to look for articles addressing barriers and challenges, in addition to articles proposing solutions. Studies were screened by title and abstract, followed by a full-text review. Risk of bias assessment was done using Critical Appraisal Skills Program for qualitative studies, Newcastle–Ottawa Scale for cross-sectional studies, and A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews for systematic reviews. After the extraction of data, a narrative synthesis and analysis of the outcomes were performed. RESULTS: Among 1194 papers identified, only 27 studies were included. Barriers and challenges were assembled under 7 categories: technical aspects, privacy, data confidentiality and reimbursement, physical examination and diagnostics, special populations, training of healthcare providers and patients, doctor-patient relationship, and acceptability. Poor internet connection and lack of universal access to technology were among the technical barriers. Concerns about patient privacy and reimbursement hindered the use of telemedicine too. Physical examination and certain procedures were impossible to perform via telemedicine. Training both healthcare providers and patients was deficient. The doctor-patient relationship was troubled by telemedicine, and both healthcare providers and patients were reluctant to use telemedicine. CONCLUSION: Widespread use of telemedicine is still hampered by various barriers and challenges. Healthcare providers should work with various stakeholders to implement the proposed solutions. More research and policy changes are essential to optimize telemedicine utilization. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12911-022-01952-0. BioMed Central 2022-08-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9351100/ /pubmed/35922817 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12911-022-01952-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Ftouni, Racha AlJardali, Baraa Hamdanieh, Maya Ftouni, Louna Salem, Nariman Challenges of Telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review |
title | Challenges of Telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review |
title_full | Challenges of Telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review |
title_fullStr | Challenges of Telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review |
title_full_unstemmed | Challenges of Telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review |
title_short | Challenges of Telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review |
title_sort | challenges of telemedicine during the covid-19 pandemic: a systematic review |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9351100/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35922817 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12911-022-01952-0 |
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