Telemedicine as a response to pandemic

The man had recently travelled, including a brief stop in Tokyo. He had a fever and cough about a week ago, but was now feeling fine. He called the virtual medical line set up by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago recently to help screen patients for coronavirus. “He said all the right buzzwords: cough, fever, fatigue,” said Dr. Meeta Shah, an emergency room physician at Rush. 

After talking with him, Shah did not think he needed to be admitted but referred him to the city’s health department. Rush and other large hospitals across the country are quickly expanding the use of telemedicine to safely screen and treat patients for coronavirus, and to try to contain the spread of infection while offering remote services. “This is a kind of turning point for virtual health,” Shah said. 

“We’re actually seeing how it can be used in a public health crisis.” While the notion of seeing a doctor via your computer or mobile phone is hardly new, telemedicine is yet to take off widely in the US. Now doctors, hospital networks and clinics are rethinking how the technology can be used, to keep the worried well calm and away from clinical care while steering the most at risk to the proper treatment. 

“The use of telemedicine is going to be critical for management of this pandemic,” said Dr. Stephen Parodi, an infectious disease specialist. Telemedicine got an additional boost under the $8.3 billion emergency funding measure from Congress, which loosened restrictions on its use to treat people covered under the federal Medicare programme. 

In a recent meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump, private health insurers also said they would pay for the virtual visits for people who may have coronavirus to improve access to care for their customers. 

Patients, particularly those who would be at high risk for a serious illness if they were infected, can now opt to substitute a trip to a doctor’s office with a virtual visit when it is a routine check in with a specialist or a primary care doctor.

That way they can avoid crowded waiting rooms and potential infection. When Rush admitted a student last week who was believed to have the virus, the hospital was able to prepare for his arrival by clearing the ambulance bay of people and vehicles to protect patients and hospital staff from possible infection. 

Taken to an isolation room, he was examined by Dr. Paul Casey, an emergency room physician, and a nurse, both in protective gear. An infectious disease specialist was consulted over an iPad. 

The patient, who did have the virus, was released last Friday, and Rush was able to avoid the fate of other hospitals in the US, where patients with COVID-19 led to the widespread quarantine of health care workers. 

NYU is also encouraging its doctors who are self-quarantined because of recent travel to see patients using video, as well as directing patients who are particularly vulnerable because of existing medical conditions to consider a virtual visit instead of heading to a doctor’s office.

But Dr Paul A Testa, an emergency medicine doctor, emphasised that patients who need to be seen in person should not hesitate to seek care. “We’re not discouraging anybody from coming in,” he said.