Patterson Victor, Humphreys Jenny, Chua Richard
Department of Teleneurology, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, UK.
J Telemed Telecare. 2003;9 Suppl 2:S42-3. doi: 10.1258/135763303322596237.
We introduced an email teleneurology service for patients referred to a neurologist by general practitioners. Over 14 months, 76 referrals (of 75 patients) were received. To determine the sustainability of the service, we studied a second cohort of 76 consecutive patients referred after our first study. We also followed up the first cohort of patients to get information on longer-term safety. The second cohort was obtained in one month less than the first, and had similar characteristics in terms of age, sex and the time taken by the neurologist to reply to the general practitioner. It contained fewer patients requiring clinic appointments (34% versus 43%). Fewer patients from the second cohort were referred for second opinions (4 versus 10) and there were no resulting changes in diagnosis. Follow-up of the first cohort from a mean of 6 months to a mean of 23 months led to seven more re-referrals and no additional changes in diagnosis. We conclude that teleneurology by email is sustainable for this group of patients, and confirm that it is safe, effective and efficient.
我们为全科医生转诊给神经科医生的患者推出了一项电子邮件远程神经学服务。在14个多月的时间里，我们收到了76例转诊（涉及75名患者）。为了确定该服务的可持续性，我们对在第一项研究之后连续转诊的第二批76例患者进行了研究。我们还对第一批患者进行了随访，以获取有关长期安全性的信息。第二批患者的招募时间比第一批少一个月，在年龄、性别以及神经科医生回复全科医生所需时间方面具有相似特征。其中需要门诊预约的患者较少（34%对43%）。第二批患者中寻求二次诊断意见的较少（4例对10例），且诊断结果没有变化。对第一批患者的随访时间从平均6个月延长至平均23个月，又有7例被再次转诊，诊断结果没有进一步变化。我们得出结论，对于这类患者，通过电子邮件进行远程神经学服务是可持续的，并证实了其安全性、有效性和高效性。
