The impact of telehealth care on escalation to emergency care: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: We compared the impact of accessing healthcare (1) by telehealth (via telephone or video) vs face-to-face; and (2) by telephone vs video telehealth care, on escalation to emergency care. METHODS: We searched Medline, Embase and Cochrane CENTRAL to 24 July 2023; and conducted a citation analysis on 19 September 2023. We included randomised controlled trials. Risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane Tool 2. We calculated risk ratios for dichotomous outcomes and standardised mean difference for continuous outcomes. RESULTS: Ten trials compared telehealth (five telephone, four video, one both) to face-to-face care. Six were overall low, three some concerns and one high risk of bias. There were no differences between telehealth and face-to-face for visits to the emergency department (RR 1.07, 95% CI 0.89 to 1.29), hospitalisations up to 12 months (RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.56 to 1.41), deaths or other adverse events. Costs of care were similar, as were patient satisfaction scores.Six trials compared telephone to video telehealth: three were overall low, two some concerns, and one high risk of bias. There were no differences between telephone and video for visits to the emergency department (RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.41 to 1.12), hospitalisations (RR 1.04, 95% CI 0.73 to 1.48), deaths, other adverse events, costs, or patient satisfaction. Healthcare provider satisfaction was high. CONCLUSIONS: Telehealth care - delivered by telephone or by video - may be an appropriate alternative to face-to-face provision of care, as it does not increase the likelihood of escalation of care to the emergency department for patients in primary care, hospital outpatients, post-discharge patients or residents in aged care.

High-flow nasal oxygen for children's airway surgery to reduce hypoxaemic events: a randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Tubeless upper airway surgery in children is a complex procedure in which surgeons and anaesthetists share the same operating field. These procedures are often interrupted for rescue oxygen therapy. The efficacy of nasal high-flow oxygen to decrease the frequency of rescue interruptions in children undergoing upper airway surgery is unknown. METHODS: In this multicentre randomised trial conducted in five tertiary hospitals in Australia, children aged 0-16 years who required tubeless upper airway surgery were randomised (1:1) by a web-based randomisation tool to either nasal high-flow oxygen delivery or standard oxygen therapy (oxygen flows of up to 6 L/min). Randomisation was stratified by site and age (<1 year, 1-4 years, and 5-16 years). Subsequent tubeless upper airway surgery procedures in the same child could be included if there were more than 2 weeks between the procedures, and repeat surgical procedures meeting this condition were considered to be independent events. The oxygen therapy could not be masked, but the investigators remained blinded until outcome data were locked. The primary outcome was successful anaesthesia without interruption of the surgical procedure for rescue oxygenation. A rescue oxygenation event was defined as an interruption of the surgical procedure to deliver positive pressure ventilation using either bag mask technique, insertion of an endotracheal tube, or laryngeal mask to improve oxygenation. There were ten secondary outcomes, including the proportion of procedures with a hypoxaemic event (SpO2 <90%). Analyses were done on an intention-to-treat (ITT) basis. Safety was assessed in all enrolled participants. This trial is registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12618000949280, and is completed. FINDINGS: From Sept 4, 2018, to April 12, 2021, 581 procedures in 487 children were randomly assigned to high-flow oxygen (297 procedures) or standard care (284 procedures); after exclusions, 528 procedures (267 assigned to high-flow oxygen and 261 assigned to standard care) in 483 children (293 male and 190 female) were included in the ITT analysis. The primary outcome of successful anaesthesia without interruption for tubeless airway surgery was achieved in 236 (88%) of 267 procedures on high-flow oxygen and in 229 (88%) of 261 procedures on standard care (adjusted risk ratio [RR] 1·02, 95% CI 0·96-1·08, p=0·82). There were 51 (19%) procedures with a hypoxaemic event in the high-flow oxygen group and 57 (22%) in the standard care group (RR 0·86, 95% CI 0·58-1·24). Of the other prespecified secondary outcomes, none showed a significant difference between groups. Adverse events of epistaxis, laryngospasm, bronchospasm, hypoxaemia, bradycardia, cardiac arrest, hypotension, or death were similar in both study groups. INTERPRETATION: Nasal high-flow oxygen during tubeless upper airway surgery did not reduce the proportion of interruptions of the procedures for rescue oxygenation compared with standard care. There were no differences in adverse events between the intervention groups. These results suggest that both approaches, nasal high-flow or standard oxygen, are suitable alternatives to maintain oxygenation in children undergoing upper airway surgery. FUNDING: Thrasher Research Fund, the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, the Society for Paediatric Anaesthesia in New Zealand and Australia.

Flexible bronchoscopy insufflated and high-flow nasal oxygen pilot trial (BUFFALO protocol pilot trial).

BACKGROUND: Hypoxaemia occurs in approximately 30% of children during anaesthesia for flexible bronchoscopy. High-flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) can prolong safe apnoea time and be used in children with abnormal airways. During flexible bronchoscopy, there is limited evidence if HFNO confers advantages over current standard practice in avoiding hypoxaemia. The aim is to investigate feasibility of HFNO use during anaesthesia for flexible bronchoscopy to reduce frequency of rescue oxygenation and hypoxaemia. METHODS: BUFFALO is a bi-centre, unmasked, randomised controlled, parallel group, protocol for a pilot trial comparing HFNO techniques to standard practice during anaesthesia. Children (n = 81) aged > 37 weeks to 16 years presenting for elective bronchoscopy who fulfil inclusion but not exclusion criteria will be randomised prior to the procedure to HFNO or standard care oxygenation post induction of anaesthesia. Maintenance of anaesthesia with HFNO requires total venous anaesthesia (TIVA) and with standard, either inhalational or TIVA at discretion of anaesthetist in charge of the patient. Outcomes will include the feasibility of recruitment and adherence to trial procedures, acceptability of the intervention of the protocol and completion rates of data collection methods. DISCUSSION: Findings of this trial will determine feasibility to plan for a larger multicentre randomised clinical trial and support the feasibility of the proposed study procedures. TRIAL REGISTRATION: BUFFALO trial was registered with Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (TRN12621001635853) on 29 November 2021 and commenced recruitment in May 2022. https://www.anzctr.org.au/ . The primary manuscript will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Diagnostic performance of clinical prediction rules to detect group A beta-haemolytic streptococci in people with acute pharyngitis: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: To assess and compare the diagnostic performance of Clinical Prediction Rules (CPRs) developed to detect group A Beta-haemolytic streptococci in people with acute pharyngitis (or sore throat). STUDY DESIGN: A systematic review. METHODS: We searched PubMed, Embase and Web of Science (inception-September 2022) for studies deriving and/or validating CPRs comprised of ≥2 predictors from an individual's history or physical examination. Two authors independently screened articles, extracted data and assessed risk of bias in included studies. A meta-analysis was not possible due to heterogeneity. Instead we compared the performance of CPRs when they were validated in the same study population (head-to-head comparisons). We used a modified grading of recommendations, assessment, development, and evaluations (GRADE) approach to assess certainty of the evidence. RESULTS: We included 63 studies, all judged at high risk of bias. Of 24 derived CPRs, 7 were externally validated (in 46 external validations). Five validation studies provided data for head-to-head comparison of four pairs of CPRs. Very low certainty evidence favoured the Centor CPR over the McIsaac (2 studies) and FeverPain CPRs (1 study) and found the Centor CPR was equivalent to the Walsh CPR (1 study). The AbuReesh and Steinhoff 2005 CPRs had a similar poor discriminative ability (1 study). Within and between study comparisons suggested the performance of the Centor CPR may be better in adults (>18 years). CONCLUSION: Very low certainty evidence suggests a better performance of the Centor CPR. When deciding about antibiotic prescribing for pharyngitis patients, involving patients in a shared decision making discussion about the likely benefits and harms, including antibiotic resistance, is recommended. Further research of higher rigour, which compares CPRs across multiple settings, is needed.

Trajectories of Parental Warmth and the Role They Play in Explaining Adolescent Prosocial Behavior.

Adolescent prosocial behavior suggests social competence and it is associated with greater parental warmth yet the experience of warmth through child and adolescent development is not well understood as it relates to such prosocial behavior. A nationally representative dataset from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children cohort was used. The analyses involved multiple waves beginning when children were aged 4-5. The main analyses used a sample of 2723 adolescents aged 16-17 years (Mean, S.D. = 16.45, 0.50; 49.2% female, 50.8% male). Parental warmth trajectories (from ages 4-5 through 16-17 years) were created and used to explore the accumulated effect of a lifecourse of parental warmth on adolescent prosocial behavior as measured when adolescents were aged 16-17 years. There were three trajectories described as, consistent (28.7%), slight decline (51.4%), and declining warmth (19.8%). These were associated with prosocial behavior; adolescents with a slight decline in warmth were 2.2 times less likely than those with consistent warmth to have the highest prosocial behavior. Consistent parental warmth likely provides greatest benefit for increased prosocial behavior in mid-adolescence.

Comparison of Telephone and Video Telehealth Consultations: Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Telehealth has been used for health care delivery for decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic greatly accelerated the uptake of telehealth in many care settings globally. However, few studies have carried out a direct comparison among different telehealth modalities, with very few studies having compared the effectiveness of telephone and video telehealth modalities. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify and synthesize randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing synchronous telehealth consultations delivered by telephone and those conducted by video with outcomes such as clinical effectiveness, patient safety, cost-effectiveness, and patient and clinician satisfaction with care. METHODS: PubMed (MEDLINE), Embase, and CENTRAL were searched via the Cochrane Library from inception until February 10, 2023, for RCTs without any language restriction. Forward and backward citation searches were conducted on included RCTs. The Cochrane Risk of Bias 2 tool was used to assess the quality of the studies. We included studies carried out in any health setting-involving all types of outpatient cohorts and all types of health care providers-that compared synchronous video consultations directly with telephone consultations and reported outcomes specified in the objective. We excluded studies of clinician-to-clinician telehealth consults, hospitalized patients, and asynchronous consultations. RESULTS: Sixteen RCTs-10 in the United States, 3 in the United Kingdom, 2 in Canada, and 1 in Australia involving 1719 participants-were included in the qualitative and quantitative analyses. Most of the telehealth interventions were for hospital-based outpatient follow-ups, monitoring, and rehabilitation (n=13). The 3 studies that were conducted in the community all focused on smoking cessation. In half of the studies, nurses delivered the care (n=8). Almost all included studies had high or unclear risk of bias, mainly due to bias in the randomization process and selection of reported results. The trials found no substantial differences between telephone and video telehealth consultations with regard to clinical effectiveness, patient satisfaction, and health care use (cost-effectiveness) outcomes. None of the studies reported on patient safety or adverse events. We did not find any study on telehealth interventions for diagnosis, initiating new treatment, or those conducted in a primary care setting. CONCLUSIONS: Based on a small set of diverse trials, we found no notable differences between telephone and video consultations for the management of patients with an established diagnosis. There is also a significant lack of telehealth research in primary care settings despite its high uptake.

Telehealth versus face-to-face delivery of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE: This systematic review and meta-analysis compared the effectiveness of the delivery of care to patients with insomnia via telehealth to its delivery face-to-face. METHODS: We searched Medline, Embase, and Cochrane CENTRAL from inception to 11 January 2023, and conducted a citation analysis on 13 June 2023. No language restrictions were imposed. We included randomised controlled trials. Where feasible, mean differences were calculated; we used a random effects model. RESULTS: Four trials (239 patients) were included. There were no significant differences between telehealth and face-to-face for insomnia severity scores shortly post-intervention (MD 1.13, 95% CI -0.29-2.55) or at 3 months (mean difference (MD) 1.79, 95% CI -0.01-3.59). There were no differences in Short Form-36 physical and mental scores, Work and Social Adjustment scores, and sleep quality components. Depression scores did not differ post-intervention or at 3 months (MD 0.42, 95% CI -2.42-3.26). Functioning likewise did not differ post-intervention or at 3 months (standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.15, 95% CI -0.37-0.67, P = 0.58). Treatment satisfaction did not differ (one trial) or favoured the face-to-face group (one trial). CONCLUSIONS: Telehealth may be a viable alternative to the face-to-face provision of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia to patients with insomnia. However, the volume of the existing evidence is limited, therefore additional trials are needed, evaluating cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia and other therapies for individuals for whom cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia is not effective, and conducted with a wider range of populations, providers and settings.