Improving the Telemedicine Evaluation of Patients With Acute Vision Loss: A Call to Eyes.

Acute vision loss related to cerebral or retinal ischemia is a time-sensitive emergency with potential treatment options including IV or intra-arterial thrombolysis and mechanical thrombectomy. However, patients either present in a delayed fashion or present to an emergency department that lacks the subspecialty expertise to recognize and treat these conditions in a timely fashion. Moreover, health care systems in the United States are becoming increasingly reliant on telestroke and teleneurology services for acute neurologic care, making the accurate diagnosis of acute vision loss even more challenging due to critical limitations to the remote video evaluation, including the inability to perform routine ophthalmoscopy. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a greater reliance on telemedicine services and helped to accelerate the development of novel tools and care pathways to improve remote ophthalmologic evaluation, but these tools have yet to be adapted for use in the remote evaluation of acute vision loss. Permanent vision loss can be disabling for patients, and efforts must be made to increase and improve early diagnosis and management. Herein, the authors outline the importance of improving acute ophthalmologic diagnosis, outline key limitations and barriers to the current video-based teleneurology assessments, highlight opportunities to leverage new tools to enhance the remote assessment of vision loss, and propose new avenues to improve access to emergent ophthalmology subspecialty.

Telestroke in the Time of COVID-19: The Mayo Clinic Experience.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic, and in the weeks following, public health organizations, medical associations, and governing bodies throughout the world recommended limiting contact with others to "flatten the curve" of COVID-19. Although both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes have been reported with COVID-19, there has been anecdotal suggestion of an overall decrease in stroke admissions. To date, the effects of any pandemic on telestroke service lines have not been described. The purpose of this cross-sectional analysis of telestroke activations in the 30 days before and after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic is to describe the difference in case volumes of telestroke activations, the characteristics of patients, and treatment recommendations between the 2 time frames. We found a 50.0% reduction in total telestroke activations between the predeclaration group (142 patients) and the postdeclaration group (71 patients). There were no statistically significant differences in age (P=.95), sex (P=.10), diagnosis (P=.26), or regional variations (P=.08) in activation volumes. The percentage of patients for whom we recommended urgent stroke treatment with intravenous alteplase, mechanical thrombectomy, or both decreased from 44.4% (28 of 63) to 33.3% (11 of 33). The reasons for the sunstantial decrease in telestroke activations and urgent stroke treatment recommendations are likely multifactorial but nevertheless underscore the importance of continued public health measures to encourage patients and families to seek emergency medical care at the time of symptom onset.

The CREST-2 experience with the evolving challenges of COVID-19: A clinical trial in a pandemic.

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has disrupted the lives of whole communities and nations. The multinational multicenter National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Carotid Revascularization and Medical Management for Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis Trial stroke prevention trial rapidly experienced the effects of the pandemic and had to temporarily suspend new enrollments and shift patient follow-up activities from in-person clinic visits to telephone contacts. There is an ethical obligation to the patients to protect their health while taking every feasible step to ensure that the goals of the trial are successfully met. Here, we describe the effects of the pandemic on the trial and steps that are being taken to mitigate the effects of the pandemic so that trial objectives can be met.