Association of a Remotely Offered Infectious Diseases eConsult Service With Improved Clinical Outcomes

Aaron J Tande; Elie F Berbari; Priya Ramar; Shiva P Ponamgi; Umesh Sharma; Lindsey Philpot; John C O'Horo

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofaa003

Association of a Remotely Offered Infectious Diseases eConsult Service With Improved Clinical Outcomes

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2020 Jan 17;7(1):ofaa003. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofaa003. eCollection 2020 Jan.

Authors

Aaron J Tande¹, Elie F Berbari¹, Priya Ramar², Shiva P Ponamgi³, Umesh Sharma³, Lindsey Philpot², John C O'Horo^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
² Robert D. and Patricia E Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
³ Division of Hospital Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic Health System, Austin, Minnesota, USA.
⁴ Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.

Abstract

We performed a case-control study to evaluate an electronic, asynchronous infectious diseases consultative service at 2 rural hospitals within our health system. Patients with consultation via this platform (n = 100) had a significantly decreased odds of death at 30 days compared with propensity-matched controls (n = 300; adjusted odds ratio, 0.3; 95% confidence interval, 0.2-0.7; P = .003).

Keywords: infection; infectious diseases; sepsis; telemedicine.

Grants and funding

UL1 TR002377/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States