Reda Ahmed Mohamed, Ahmed Wael M
Department of ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Sham University, Cairo 11566, Egypt.
Dar Eloyoun Eye Laser Centers, Muscat 118, Oman.
Int J Ophthalmol. 2020 Jul 18;13(7):1017-1022. doi: 10.18240/ijo.2020.07.01. eCollection 2020.
To take specific precautions and keep a safe practice during providing ophthalmology health services without compromising the patient's safety as well as the team workers and the community in the pandemic stage of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Applying patient circulation scheme implemented in our ophthalmology centers with the guidance of ministry of health infection control guidelines started from the moment that we receive a call or WhatsApp message or Facebook inquiry from patients until 21d after patients first visit if any. Four directions were taken. First, community awareness of the disease and the ophthalmology related advices in how eye can transfers the infection and how to protect our eyes not to be infected through videos interviews of our consultants and distribution in social media like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp pages radio and TV interviews as well as leaflet health awareness for distribution for public. Second, scheduling of patients' appointments to prevent overcrowdings and cross infection. Third, protective measurements tools in the center to detect and prevent any exposure of the patients to patients and to protect medical staff, COVID-19 scoring system was set up to identify patients with fever, respiratory symptoms, acute conjunctivitis or recent travel to outbreak areas and to encourage these individuals to postpone their appointments for at least 21d. Proper use of personal protective equipment was implemented. Stopping all the elective surgeries keeping only the emergency types advised by fourth: how to deal with our patients if they need an urgent ophthalmological intervention and how to deal with suspected cases of corona if any cases detected.
Our measures helped our colleagues to try to keep providing ophthalmology health services without increasing the incidence of infection for COVID-19 until this pandemic is over.
In our practice, ophthalmologists should work with new aura of social media to facilitate the non-direct communication with the patients through maximizing the use of communication technology to keep contact with their patients and deal safely with COVID-19 cases.
在2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行阶段提供眼科健康服务时采取特定预防措施并保持安全操作，同时不损害患者、团队工作人员及社区的安全。
应用在我们眼科中心实施的患者流通方案，该方案在卫生部感染控制指南的指导下，从我们接到患者的电话、WhatsApp消息或Facebook询问之时开始，直至患者首次就诊后21天（如有）。采取了四个方向的措施。第一，通过我们顾问的视频访谈以及在Instagram、Facebook、WhatsApp页面、广播和电视访谈等社交媒体上发布，以及发放面向公众的健康意识传单，提高社区对该疾病以及眼科相关建议的认识，内容包括眼睛如何传播感染以及如何保护眼睛不被感染。第二，安排患者预约以防止过度拥挤和交叉感染。第三，在中心设置防护措施工具以检测和防止患者之间的任何接触，并保护医务人员，建立COVID-19评分系统以识别发烧、呼吸道症状、急性结膜炎或近期前往疫情地区的患者，并鼓励这些人至少推迟21天预约。实施个人防护设备的正确使用。停止所有择期手术，仅保留第四点建议的急诊类型：如果患者需要紧急眼科干预应如何处理，以及如果检测到任何疑似冠状病毒病例应如何处理。
我们的措施帮助我们的同事在疫情结束前努力持续提供眼科健康服务，同时不增加COVID-19的感染发生率。
在我们的实践中，眼科医生应借助社交媒体的新氛围，通过最大限度地利用通信技术与患者保持联系并安全处理COVID-19病例，促进与患者的非直接沟通。
