Wootton Richard, Otero Hansel, Moretti Meghan
Collegium Telemedicus, Somerset TA1 1EG, UK.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Int J Telemed Appl. 2021 May 3;2021:6644648. doi: 10.1155/2021/6644648. eCollection 2021.
We surveyed three well-established store-and-forward telemedicine networks to identify any changes during the first half of 2020, which might have been due to the effect of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on their telemedicine operations. The three networks all used the Collegium Telemedicus system. Various quantitative performance indicators, which included the numbers of referrals and the case-mix, were compared with their values in previous years. Two of the three networks surveyed (A and B) provided telemedicine services for any type of medical or surgical case, while the third (network C) handled only pediatric radiology cases. All networks operated in Africa, but networks A and C also provided services in other resource-constrained regions. Two of the networks (networks B and C) used local staff to submit referrals, while network A relied mainly on its expatriate staff. During the first half of 2020, the numbers of referrals received on network B increased substantially, while in contrast, the numbers of referrals on network A declined. All three networks had relatively stable referral rates during 2018 and 2019. All three networks delivered a service that was rated highly by the referrers. One network operated at relatively high efficiency compared to the other two, although it is not known if this is sustainable. The networks which were more reliant on local referrers saw little reduction-or even an increase-in submitted cases, while the network that had the most dependence on international staff saw a big fall in submitted cases. This was probably due to the effect of international travel restrictions on the deployment of its staff. We conclude that organizations wanting to build or expand their telemedicine services should consider deliberately empowering local providers as their referrers.
我们调查了三个成熟的存储转发远程医疗网络，以确定2020年上半年是否有任何变化，这些变化可能是由于COVID-19冠状病毒大流行对其远程医疗业务的影响。这三个网络都使用了Collegium Telemedicus系统。将各种定量绩效指标（包括转诊数量和病例组合）与前几年的值进行了比较。接受调查的三个网络中的两个（A和B）为任何类型的医疗或外科病例提供远程医疗服务，而第三个（网络C）只处理儿科放射病例。所有网络都在非洲运营，但网络A和C也在其他资源有限的地区提供服务。其中两个网络（网络B和C）使用当地工作人员提交转诊，而网络A主要依靠其外籍工作人员。在2020年上半年，网络B收到的转诊数量大幅增加，而相比之下，网络A的转诊数量下降。在2018年和2019年，所有三个网络的转诊率都相对稳定。所有三个网络提供的服务都得到了转诊者的高度评价。与其他两个网络相比，有一个网络的运营效率相对较高，尽管尚不清楚这是否可持续。更依赖当地转诊者的网络提交的病例减少很少，甚至有所增加，而最依赖国际工作人员的网络提交的病例大幅下降。这可能是由于国际旅行限制对其工作人员部署的影响。我们得出结论认为，想要建立或扩大其远程医疗服务的组织应考虑有意赋予当地提供者转诊权。
