MedStar Health National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, Washington, D.C., USA.
Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, D.C., USA.
J Telemed Telecare. 2022 Aug;28(7):494-497. doi: 10.1177/1357633X20943339. Epub 2020 Jul 23.
COVID-19 requires methods for screening patients that adhere to physical distancing and other Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. There is little data on the use of on-demand telehealth to meet this need.
The functional performance of on-demand telehealth as a COVID-19 remote patient screening approach was conducted by analysing 9270 patient requests.
Most on-demand telehealth requests (5712 of 9270 total requests; 61.6%) had a visit reason that was likely COVID-19 related. Of these, 79.1% (4518 of 5712) resulted in a completed encounter and 20.9% (1194 of 5712) resulted in left without being seen. Of the 4518 completed encounters, 19.1% were referred to an urgent care centre, emergency department or COVID-19 testing centre. The average completed encounter wait time was 26.5 min and the mean visit length was 8.8 min. For patients that completed an encounter 42.8% (1935 of 4518) stated they would have sought in-person care and 9.1% stated they would have done nothing if on-demand telehealth was unavailable.
On-demand telehealth can serve as a low-barrier approach to screen patients for COVID-19. This approach can prevent patients from visiting healthcare facilities, which reduces physical contact and reduces healthcare worker use of personal protective equipment.
COVID-19 需要符合物理距离和其他疾病控制与预防中心指南的患者筛选方法。关于使用按需远程医疗来满足这一需求的数据很少。
通过分析 9270 名患者的请求，对按需远程医疗作为 COVID-19 远程患者筛选方法的功能性能进行了研究。
大多数按需远程医疗请求（9270 总请求中的 5712 次；61.6%）的就诊原因可能与 COVID-19 相关。在这些请求中，79.1%（4518 次中有 4518 次）完成了就诊，20.9%（5712 次中有 1194 次）未就诊。在完成的 4518 次就诊中，19.1%被转至紧急护理中心、急诊或 COVID-19 检测中心。平均完成就诊的等待时间为 26.5 分钟，平均就诊时间为 8.8 分钟。对于完成就诊的患者，42.8%（4518 次中有 1935 次）表示他们会寻求亲自就诊，如果没有按需远程医疗，9.1%表示他们将无所作为。
按需远程医疗可以作为一种低门槛的方法来筛选 COVID-19 患者。这种方法可以防止患者前往医疗机构就诊，从而减少身体接触，并减少医护人员使用个人防护设备的次数。
