Tele-medicine versus face-to-face consultation in Endocrine Outpatients Clinic during COVID-19 outbreak: a single-center experience during the lockdown period.
J Endocrinol Invest
; 44(8): 1689-1698, 2021 Aug.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-996502
ABSTRACT
CONTEXT The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy is the major concern of Public Health in 2020 measures of containment were progressively expanded, limiting Outpatients' visit. OBJECTIVE:
We have developed and applied an emergency plan, tailored for Outpatients with endocrine diseases.DESIGN:
Cross-sectional study from March to May 2020.SETTING:
Referral University-Hospital center. PATIENTS 1262 patients in 8 weeks.INTERVENTIONS:
The emergency plan is based upon the endocrine triage, the stay-safe procedures and the tele-Endo. During endocrine triage every patient was contacted by phone to assess health status and define if the visit will be performed face-to-face (F2F) or by tele-Medicine (tele-Endo). In case of F2F, targeted stay-safe procedures have been adopted. Tele-Endo, performed by phone and email, is dedicated to COVID-19-infected patients, to elderly or frail people, or to those with a stable disease. MAIN OUTCOMEMEASURE:
To assess efficacy of the emergency plan to continue the follow-up of Outpatients.RESULTS:
The number of visits cancelled after endocrine triage (9%) is lower than that cancelled independently by the patients (37%, p < 0.001); the latter reduced from 47 to 19% during the weeks of lockdown (p = 0.032). 86% of patients contacted by endocrine-triage received a clinical response (F2F and tele-Endo visits). F2F visit was offered especially to young patients; tele-Endo was applied to 63% of geriatric patients (p < 0.001), visits' outcome was similar between young and aged patients.CONCLUSIONS:
The emergency plan respects the WHO recommendations to limit viral spread and is useful to continue follow-up for outpatients with endocrine diseases.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Referral and Consultation
/
Communicable Disease Control
/
Telemedicine
/
Endocrinology
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
J Endocrinol Invest
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S40618-020-01476-2
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