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Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience

Telemedicine is a rapid tool that reduces the time until treatment for patients, which is especially useful for neurosurgical trauma. The aim of our study was to evaluate the use of telemedicine in neurosurgery during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the pre-pandemic era. We assessed the utilizat...

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Autores principales: Koruga, Nenad, Soldo Koruga, Anamarija, Rončević, Robert, Turk, Tajana, Kopačin, Vjekoslav, Kretić, Domagoj, Rotim, Tatjana, Rončević, Alen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9497489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36140463
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12092061
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author Koruga, Nenad
Soldo Koruga, Anamarija
Rončević, Robert
Turk, Tajana
Kopačin, Vjekoslav
Kretić, Domagoj
Rotim, Tatjana
Rončević, Alen
author_facet Koruga, Nenad
Soldo Koruga, Anamarija
Rončević, Robert
Turk, Tajana
Kopačin, Vjekoslav
Kretić, Domagoj
Rotim, Tatjana
Rončević, Alen
author_sort Koruga, Nenad
collection PubMed
description Telemedicine is a rapid tool that reduces the time until treatment for patients, which is especially useful for neurosurgical trauma. The aim of our study was to evaluate the use of telemedicine in neurosurgery during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the pre-pandemic era. We assessed the utilization of telemedicine at the Department of Neurosurgery at University Hospital Center Osijek in Croatia over a timespan of one year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the first year of the pandemic, starting with the date of first lockdown in Croatia. For each time period, the total number of consults and specific clinical inquiries were recorded and adequately grouped as well as comprehensive patient characteristics. There were 336 consults in the pre-pandemic period and 504 in the pandemic period. The number of trauma-related consults during COVID-19 measures was significantly higher than the pre-pandemic era (288 and 138, respectively, p < 0.0001). Neurosurgical trauma patients requiring consults in the pandemic period were significantly older than before the pandemic (64.9 ± 18.5 and 60.6 ± 19.1, respectively, p = 0.03). Significantly, the number of admissions to our center and urgent surgeries did not significantly differ between these periods. Telemedicine is a cost-effective tool in the neurosurgical evaluation of patients, especially for trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated telemedicine implementation and improved neurosurgical trauma treatments.
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spelling pubmed-94974892022-09-23 Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience Koruga, Nenad Soldo Koruga, Anamarija Rončević, Robert Turk, Tajana Kopačin, Vjekoslav Kretić, Domagoj Rotim, Tatjana Rončević, Alen Diagnostics (Basel) Article Telemedicine is a rapid tool that reduces the time until treatment for patients, which is especially useful for neurosurgical trauma. The aim of our study was to evaluate the use of telemedicine in neurosurgery during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the pre-pandemic era. We assessed the utilization of telemedicine at the Department of Neurosurgery at University Hospital Center Osijek in Croatia over a timespan of one year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the first year of the pandemic, starting with the date of first lockdown in Croatia. For each time period, the total number of consults and specific clinical inquiries were recorded and adequately grouped as well as comprehensive patient characteristics. There were 336 consults in the pre-pandemic period and 504 in the pandemic period. The number of trauma-related consults during COVID-19 measures was significantly higher than the pre-pandemic era (288 and 138, respectively, p < 0.0001). Neurosurgical trauma patients requiring consults in the pandemic period were significantly older than before the pandemic (64.9 ± 18.5 and 60.6 ± 19.1, respectively, p = 0.03). Significantly, the number of admissions to our center and urgent surgeries did not significantly differ between these periods. Telemedicine is a cost-effective tool in the neurosurgical evaluation of patients, especially for trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated telemedicine implementation and improved neurosurgical trauma treatments. MDPI 2022-08-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9497489/ /pubmed/36140463 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12092061 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Koruga, Nenad
Soldo Koruga, Anamarija
Rončević, Robert
Turk, Tajana
Kopačin, Vjekoslav
Kretić, Domagoj
Rotim, Tatjana
Rončević, Alen
Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience
title Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience
title_full Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience
title_fullStr Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience
title_full_unstemmed Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience
title_short Telemedicine in Neurosurgical Trauma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single-Center Experience
title_sort telemedicine in neurosurgical trauma during the covid-19 pandemic: a single-center experience
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9497489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36140463
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12092061
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