ABSTRACT
Background Telehealth and telemedicine have become indispensable healthcare delivery tools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Older individuals with cirrhosis have complex medical needs that are currently unmet due to the growing disease burden and decreased access to care. Delivering timely specialist care virtually to older adults with cirrhosis will likely be beneficial and acceptable to such patients;however, this has not yet been prospectively evaluated. Purpose The primary goal is to pilot the delivery of dual specialist care from a hepatologist and geriatrician, delivered virtually, for older adults living with liver cirrhosis who are at high risk of geriatric syndromes (age >/= 65 with frailty, undifferentiated cognitive impairment from dementia or hepatic encephalopathy, recurrent falls, risk factors for polypharmacy and moderate to severe malnutrition). Care is delivered using a dedicated hepatology-geriatric referral pathway. Primary objectives include evaluating the impact of this approach on emergency care and inpatient utilization, along with patient attitude and satisfaction to the virtual interdisciplinary care delivery model. Method This pilot quality improvement study was conducted in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Ethics approval was obtained from the Nova Scotia Health Research Ethics Board and the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board. Fifty to one hundred participants (age 65 years or older with at least one geriatric syndrome;diagnosis of liver cirrhosis by liver elastography or liver biopsy, or Fibrosis-4 Index for Liver Fibrosis greater than three and having radiological features of cirrhosis and/or portal hypertension) were recruited between September 2022 to December 2022 at the time of their hepatology consultation. After consent and screening, each patient underwent a telehealth appointment by zoom with a geriatrician within four weeks of their initial hepatology assessment. Follow-up by telephone using a standardized survey regarding ease of access and quality of their telehealth experience then occurred at 3-4 weeks, 3 months and 6 months for emergency room visits and hospital admission status. Result(s) Pending Conclusion(s) Pending Please acknowledge all funding agencies by checking the applicable boxes below Other Please indicate your source of funding;Pfizer Canada Disclosure of Interest J. Zhu Grant / Research support from: Pfizer Canada, F. Carr Grant / Research support from: Pfizer Canada, P. Tian: None Declared, M. McLeod: None Declared, M. MacFarlane: None Declared, S. De Coutere: None Declared, M. Sun: None Declared, K. Peltekian: None Declared
ABSTRACT
Background: Severe restrictions on in-person encounters and endoscopic procedures for digestive care have occurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has exacerbated pre-existing barriers in access to gastroenterology (GI) care across Nova Scotia (NS) for patients and primary healthcare providers (PHCPs). In response, a provincial PHCP-GI consultative service (GUT LINK) was implemented at a single tertiary care center with the goal of supporting PHCPs in the management of non-urgent GI referral conditions. Aims: To implement and evaluate the acceptability, feasibility, appropriateness, and early effectiveness of the GUT LINK PHCP-GI consultation service. Methods: This is an ongoing prospective observational cohort study. All referrals received through the EMR-based referral and triage management system between May and November 2020 that were deemed to be amenable to management within primary care with specialist support were returned to the PHCP with the suggestion to arrange a GUT LINK telephone consultation. GUT LINK appointments were scheduled through an administrative support telephone line with the PHCP and a GI specialist. A post-consultation e-questionnaire was distributed to PHCPs who consented to participate. Feasibility (number of and indication for referrals, PHCP participation rates), acceptability and appropriateness (satisfaction, future use, likelihood to recommend) metrics and outcomes (case resolution, re-referrals, proportion requiring endoscopic investigations) were recorded. Patient charts were reviewed to determine whether the patient ultimately required GI speciality care. Analyses were descriptive and expressed as frequencies, means (+/-SD), medians (+/-SE), and proportions (%). Results: A total of 45 GUT LINK consultations were completed between May and November 2020. Of these, 20% required GI specialist care and 80% have remained within primary care, with a median follow-up of 101 (+/-9.1) days. The indications for GUT LINK consultation included lower GI symptoms (64%), abnormal imaging or investigations (17%), and upper GI symptoms (19%). been completed. All PHCPs reported that GUT LINK consultation was easy to access, while 90% found the advice helpful and 80% reported that that it resolved the issue. Following the GUT LINK appointment, 80% felt they would not need to refer their patient to GI. Conclusions: The implementation of GUT LINK was acceptable, feasible, and improved access to specialist support for management of undifferentiated GI symptoms. Future research will focus on comprehensive stakeholder engagement in order to design, implement, and evaluate GUT LINK PHCP care pathways.
ABSTRACT
Background: The global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a dramatic re-alignment of clinical service delivery. In mid-March 2020 the Division of Digestive Care and Endoscopy at Dalhousie University leveraged eHealth technology to rapidly implemented a new referral management and triage system and established a new rapid outpatient consultation service to facilitate urgent virtual and face-to-face appointments. Standardized procedures for triaging, booking, and staffing the urgent gastroenterology consultation service were implemented. Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the implementation of a standardized triage and consultation process on access to urgent gastroenterology consultative services at a single tertiary care center during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We performed a pre- and post-implementation study comparing efficiency metrics for urgent triage and urgent consultation. The pre-implementation cohort included all patients referred and triaged to an urgent clinic appointment between April 1, 2019 to September 30, 2019. The post-implementation cohort included all patients referred and triaged to an urgent clinic appointment between April 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020. Healthcare efficiency data was extracted through electronic record review with specific dates and times for referral receipt (a), triage completion (b), appointment wait-listing (c), and clinic appointment (d). The time to triage (TT), time to visit (TV), and total time to consult (TC) were calculated (TT = c - a;TV = d - c;TC = TT + TV) for each patient. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare TT, TV, CT between patient cohorts. Results: A total of 429 patients were booked for urgent clinic consultation, 176 during the pre-implementation period and 253 in the post-implementation period. The mean TT for the pre-and post-implementation cohorts was 4.8 days and 3.3 days, respectively (U=18,149, p=0.001). Mean TV was decreased from 16.2 days for the pre-implementation cohort to 3.6 days for the post-implementation cohort (U=6095, p=0.000). The mean time from a referral being received to the patient being seen in consultation (TC) decreased by 67% from 21 days to 6.9 days, Figure 1 (U=6,419, p=0.000). Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on healthcare delivery in Nova Scotia. One positive result is that it facilitated the motivation and alignment needed to make a large health system change that may not have otherwise been possible. This study demonstrates that a standardized pathway for urgent outpatient gastroenterology assessment improves the timeliness of care delivery.
ABSTRACT
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has placed the Canadian healthcare system under substantial strain requiring rapid and systemic changes to healthcare delivery in gastroenterology ambulatory care, including a shift to providing synchronous clinical visits virtually. It is important to describe and evaluate the impact of this care delivery change on patients, providers and the healthcare system in order to improve the quality of virtual care in the future. Aims As part of a larger quality improvement initiative, the aim of this project was to better understand the health system impact of the shift from in-person to virtual care delivery in the Division of Digestive Care & Endoscopy in Halifax, NS. Methods Using a before-and-after observational study design, outpatient encounters from January-March 2020 (Pre-COVID) were compared to encounters after the pandemic restrictions began April-June 2020 (COVID-Impacted). The primary objective was to compare the proportion of synchronous clinic encounters in the gastroenterology ambulatory space conducted virtually before versus after pandemic restrictions were implemented. Secondary objectives were to determine whether patient, disease, or provider-specific factors were associated with virtual care visits or changed with the implementation of pandemic restrictions. Endoscopic encounters were excluded. Descriptive statistics were used to compare patient and encounter characteristics in the Pre-COVID and COVID-Impacted periods. Multiple logistic regression modeling was used to evaluate the association between patient and provider characteristics and use of virtual care delivery. Unadjusted and adjusted odds ratio with associated 95% CI were estimated. Results A total of 4,923 unique patients (60.1% Pre-COVID and 39.9% in the COVID-Impacted period) and 6,659 encounters were identified. The proportion of synchronous clinical visits conducted virtually increased after February 2020, increasing from 25% (Pre-COVID) to 91% (COVID-Impacted). The Pre-COVID versus COVID-Impacted periods also differed with respect to median patient age (56 vs. 59, P = 0.000), mean proximity to the hospital (40km vs. 48km, P = 0.007) and proportion of new consults deemed urgent (9.8% vs. 20.0%, P = 0.000). Patients with family physicians, return visits, and patient age greater than 65 years were associated with the use of synchronous virtual care visits. Conclusions This project details the abrupt and significant disruption in in-person ambulatory, non-endoscopic digestive care and the dramatic uptake in virtual care delivery as a result of COVID-19 restrictions in Halifax, NS. Future research will explore virtual care use as pandemic restrictions ease to inform how virtual care is integrated into post-pandemic practice to guide new standards of care. Funding Agencies None