Telemedicine: A cornerstone of healthcare assistance during the SARS-Cov2 pandemic outbreak but also a great opportunity for the near future

Edoardo Tartaglia; Emilia Anna Vozzella; Anna Iervolino; Rosanna Egidio; Gaetano Buonocore; Antonietta Perrone; Guglielmo Toscano; Raffaele Tremante; Francesca Cesaro; Vincenzo Sommella; Paola Magri; Lanfranco Iodice

doi:10.1016/j.smhl.2022.100324

Telemedicine: A cornerstone of healthcare assistance during the SARS-Cov2 pandemic outbreak but also a great opportunity for the near future

Smart Health (Amst). 2022 Dec:26:100324. doi: 10.1016/j.smhl.2022.100324. Epub 2022 Sep 20.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Public Health, University "Federico II" via Pansini, 5, Naples, Italy, Zipcode 80131.
² Health Management - University Hospital "Saint John of God and Ruggi d'Aragona" - Salerno, Largo Città di Ippocrate, Salerno, Zipcode 84131, Italy.
³ Health Management - University Hospital "Federico II" via Pansini, 5, Naples, Zipcode 80131, Italy.
⁴ General Management - University Hospital "Federico II" via Pansini, 5, Naples, Zipcode 80131, Italy.
⁵ Unit of Informative System, ICT and New Information Technology - University Hospital "Federico II" via Pansini, 5, Naples, Zipcode 80131, Italy.
⁶ Engineering S.p.A. c/o University Hospital "Federico II" via Pansini, 5, Naples, Zipcode 80131, Italy.
⁷ Italian Health Ministry c/o USMAF Campania via Immacolatella Vecchia Napoli, Naples, Zipcode 80133, Italy.

Abstract

At the end of 2019, Wuhan, China, experienced an outbreak of a novel coronavirus. The SARS-CoV2 epidemiologic burden was constantly evolving, with numbers of infected persons, hospital admissions and deaths growing near exponentially. The pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 worldwide caught the health care systems in every country by storm and without a proper defense mechanism to cope and control such a pandemic, causing an overwhelming burden of illnesses that stressed the Health System capacity. In this context, telemedicine has been promoted and scaled up to reduce the risk of transmission. During the "lockdown", the AOU "Federico II" was forced to create peculiar pathways to ensure the safety of the patients and medical staff, and to keep an appropriate medical assistance, therefore it was introduced the telemedicine, wherever possible, by modifying the Information Technology (IT) related to the waiting times, rescheduling all booked visits and identifying several outpatient clinics suitable for telemedicine activities. In this paper the Authors reports their own experience with Telemedicine.

Keywords: ACE2, Angiotensin-converting enzyme; AOU, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria (Teaching Hospital); ARDS, Acute respiratory distress syndrome; COVID-19; COVID-19, CoronaVirus Disease 19; CRS, Cytokine release syndrome; Coronavirus; HM, Health Management; Healthcare assistance.; IT, Information Technology; MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome; SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome; SARS-CoV-2, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2; SARS-CoV2; TM, Telemedicine; Telemedicine; WHO, World Health Organization.