RESUMO
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, changes and improvements regarding the organization have been made to adapt quickly at the Emergency Department (ED) of the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Argentina. This article describes the design, implementation, and use of an electronic dashboard which provided monitoring of patients discharged home, during follow-up with telehealth. It was useful to access essential information to organize and coordinate professional work and patients' surveillance, providing highly relevant data in real-time as proxy variables for quality and safety during home isolation. The implemented tool innovated in the integration of technologies within a real context. The information management was crucial to optimize services and decision-making, as well to guarantee safety for healthcare workers and patients.
Assuntos
COVID-19 , Telemedicina , Serviço Hospitalar de Emergência , Humanos , Pacientes Ambulatoriais , Pandemias , Qualidade da Assistência à SaúdeRESUMO
Since Argentina's government declared a national emergency to combat the COVID-19 pandemic with a lockdown status, it has produced consequences on the healthcare system. We aimed to quantify the effect on the Emergency Department (ED) visits at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. Our electronic health data showed that ED in-person visits declined 46% during the COVID-19 pandemic, from an overall of 176,370 visits during 2019 to 95,421 visits during 2020. Simultaneously, there was a telehealth visits boom when mandatory quarantine began (March 20, 2020): from a median of 12 daily in February 2020 to a median of 338 daily in April 2020; reaching a maximum daily peak of 1,132 on March 26 2020. For a while, teleconsultations replaced ED visits. Then, when face-to-face visits began to increase, teleconsultations began to decrease slowly, as the phenomenon reversed.
Assuntos
COVID-19 , Telemedicina , Argentina/epidemiologia , COVID-19/epidemiologia , Controle de Doenças Transmissíveis , Serviço Hospitalar de Emergência , Humanos , Pandemias , Estudos Retrospectivos , SARS-CoV-2Assuntos
Humanos , Infecções Respiratórias , Telemedicina , Encaminhamento e Consulta , Surtos de DoençasAssuntos
Humanos , Masculino , Feminino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Agendamento de Consultas , Consulta Remota/métodos , Gerenciamento da Prática Profissional/organização & administração , Medicina Geral/métodos , Padrões de Prática Médica/organização & administração , Atitude do Pessoal de Saúde , Entrevistas como Assunto/métodos , Carga de Trabalho/estatística & dados numéricos , Avaliação de Resultados em Cuidados de Saúde , Análise Custo-Benefício , Consulta Remota/organização & administração , Consulta Remota/estatística & dados numéricos , Estudos Observacionais como Assunto , Preferência do Paciente , Medicina Geral/organização & administração , Medicina Geral/estatística & dados numéricos , Clínicos Gerais/psicologia , Clínicos Gerais/estatística & dados numéricos , Reino UnidoRESUMO
Telemedicine is an increasingly used strategy for providing care to patients. The prevention and treatment of Upper Respiratory Tract Infections (URTIs) during outbreaks still require new management approaches. We aimed to describe patients' characteristics and the care process after the creation and implementation of a virtual care program for patients with URTI during the epidemiological outbreak. We studied all consultations that took place between May, 21st, and September, 14th 2018 at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires (HIBA). After applying exclusion criteria 218 consultations were left for the analysis. Most patients did not need a referral to a care center for a face-to-face assessment. The consultation rate to the Emergency Department (ED) within 7 days was 11.92% (26/218) with a 95% CI of 7.94-16.99%. This new approach in patient care has a great potential for relieving the overcrowding in EDs, decreasing waiting times and preventing the infection spread in waiting rooms.
