Tele-medicine versus face-to-face consultation in Endocrine Outpatients Clinic during COVID-19 outbreak: a single-center experience during the lockdown period.

CONTEXT

The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy is the major concern of Public Health in 2020: measures of containment were progressively expanded, limiting Outpatients' visit.

OBJECTIVE

We have developed and applied an emergency plan, tailored for Outpatients with endocrine diseases.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study from March to May 2020.

SETTING

Referral University-Hospital center.

PATIENTS

1262 patients in 8 weeks.

INTERVENTIONS

The emergency plan is based upon the endocrine triage, the stay-safe procedures and the tele-Endo. During endocrine triage every patient was contacted by phone to assess health status and define if the visit will be performed face-to-face (F2F) or by tele-Medicine (tele-Endo). In case of F2F, targeted stay-safe procedures have been adopted. Tele-Endo, performed by phone and email, is dedicated to COVID-19-infected patients, to elderly or frail people, or to those with a stable disease.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

To assess efficacy of the emergency plan to continue the follow-up of Outpatients.

RESULTS

The number of visits cancelled after endocrine triage (9%) is lower than that cancelled independently by the patients (37%, p < 0.001); the latter reduced from 47 to 19% during the weeks of lockdown (p = 0.032). 86% of patients contacted by endocrine-triage received a clinical response (F2F and tele-Endo visits). F2F visit was offered especially to young patients; tele-Endo was applied to 63% of geriatric patients (p < 0.001), visits' outcome was similar between young and aged patients.

CONCLUSIONS

The emergency plan respects the WHO recommendations to limit viral spread and is useful to continue follow-up for outpatients with endocrine diseases.