RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Telehealth in the time of COVID-19
JF Emergency Medicine Journal
JO Emerg Med J
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and the British Association for Accident & Emergency Medicine
SP 637
OP 638
DO 10.1136/emermed-2020-209846
VO 37
IS 10
A1 Aditi U. Joshi
A1 Resa E Lewiss
YR 2020
UL http://emj.bmj.com/content/37/10/637.abstract
AB Telehealth or using technology for a remote medical encounter has become an efficient solution for safe patient care during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or COVID-19 pandemic. This medium allows patient immediate healthcare access without the need for an in-person visit. We designed a time-sensitive, practical, effective and innovative scale-up of telehealth services as a response to the demand for COVID-19 evaluation and testing. As more patients made appointments through the institution’s telehealth programme, we increased the number of clinicians available. JeffConnect, the acute care telehealth programme, was expanded to increase staffing from a standing staff of 37–187 doctors within 72 hours. Telehealth care clinicians primarily trained in emergency medicine, internal medicine and family medicine followed a patient decision pathway to risk stratify patients into three groups: home quarantine no testing, home quarantine with outpatient COVID-19 testing and referral for in-person evaluation in the ED, for symptomatic and potentially unstable patients.