Telemedicine in monitoring pediatric LT patients before and during COVID-19 pandemic.
Pediatr Transplant
; 26(1): e14138, 2022 02.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1402967
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The delivery of healthcare services by telemedicine decreases costs of traveling for patients, is less time-consuming, and most importantly permits the connection between highly skilled specialists and patients. However, whether the use of telemedicine (text messaging) for LT patients was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is unknown.METHODS:
We collected data (following consent from patients and parents) from 57 patients (33 male/24 female) with a median age of 47 (IQR 9-91) months, whom we followed up with text messaging between September 2019 and September 2020, spanning the 6 months prior to COVID-19 and during this period.RESULTS:
In total, 723 text message mediated consultations occurred during this period, henceforth simply referred to as "messages." Three hundred and twenty-eight (45%) messages occurred during the 6 months up to the start of the pandemic. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, the number of messages increased to 395 (55%). The three most common reasons of messaging were post-liver-LT follow-up messages (n = 215/723, 29.7%), consultations for drug use (n = 157/723, 21.7%), and medication prescriptions (n = 113/723, 15.6%). Protocol biopsy discussions (n = 33/723, 4.6%) and fever (n = 27/723, 3.7%) were among others (vaccination, rash, diarrhea, cough, fatigue, acne). During the COVID-19 outbreak, only post-LT follow-up messages increased significantly to 132/395 (33%) from 83/328 (25%) (p-value .02).CONCLUSIONS:
We found that the pandemic resulted in an increase in the total number of text message mediated consultations and specifically for the use of post-LT follow-up. Messaging was effective for post-LT follow-ups and all patients were at least satisfied.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Postoperative Care
/
Practice Patterns, Physicians'
/
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
/
Liver Transplantation
/
Telemedicine
/
Text Messaging
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Infant
/
Male
Language:
English
Journal:
Pediatr Transplant
Journal subject:
Pediatrics
/
Transplantation
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Petr.14138
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