COVID-Care - a safe and successful digital self-assessment tool for outpatients with proven and suspected coronavirus-2019.
| Autor: | Drewett GP; Department of Infectious Diseases, Austin Health, Heidelberg, Australia., Holmes NE; Department of Infectious Diseases, Austin Health, Heidelberg, Australia.; Data Analytics Research and Evaluation (DARE) Centre, Austin Health and The University of Melbourne, Heidelberg, Australia.; Data Analytics Research and Evaluation (DARE) Centre, Austin Health and The University of Melbourne, Heidelberg, Australia.; Department of Critical Care, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia., Trubiano JA; Department of Infectious Diseases, Austin Health, Heidelberg, Australia.; Department of Medicine (Austin Health), University of Melbourne, Heidelberg, Australia., Vogrin S; Department of Medicine, St Vincent's Hospital, University of Melbourne, Fitzroy, Australia., Feldman J; Arden Street Labs, Melbourne, Australia., Rose M; Department of Infectious Diseases, Austin Health, Heidelberg, Australia.; Department of Oncology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia. |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Zdroj: | Digital health [Digit Health] 2021 Sep 27; Vol. 7, pp. 20552076211047382. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Sep 27 (Print Publication: 2021). |
| DOI: | 10.1177/20552076211047382 |
| Abstrakt: | Introduction: The coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and restrictions placed on movement to prevent its transmission have led to a surge in demand for remote medical care. We investigated whether COVID-Care, a patient-reported, telehealth, symptom monitoring system, was successful at delivering safe monitoring and care for these patients leading to decreased hospital presentations. Methods: We performed a single centre, prospective, interventional cohort study with symptomatic outpatients who presented for COVID-19 screening at Austin Health, Australia. Participants were invited to take part in the COVID-Care programme, entering common COVID-19 symptoms on a purpose-built, online survey monitored by infectious diseases physicians, and matched with clinical data including date of symptom onset, hospital admission, and screening clinic presentations. Results: 42,158 COVID-19 swabs were performed in 31,626 patients from March to October 2020, with 414 positive cases. 20,768 people used the COVID-Care survey at least once. COVID-Care users were significantly younger than non-users. Of the 414 positive cases, 254 (61.3%) used COVID-Care, with 160 (38.6%) non-users. Excluding presentations on the same day or prior to the COVID-19 swab, of the positive cases there were 56 hospital presentations. 4.3% (11) of COVID-Care users and 28.1% (45) non-users were admitted to hospital or the emergency department ( p < 0.001), with 3.9% (10) versus 22.5% (36) requiring inpatient admission ( p < 0.001). There were no deaths in COVID-Care users versus 2 deaths in non-users. Conclusion: COVID-Care, a digitally integrated, outpatient, symptom tracking and telemedical service for patients with COVID-19, was safe and successful at reducing hospital and emergency department admissions, suggesting a strong role for telemedicine for future healthcare delivery in this logistically challenging setting. Competing Interests: Author Contributions: GD, JT and MR contributed to the study design. GD and SV performed the statistical analysis. GD, NH and MR contributed to the writing of the paper. All authors contributed to review of the manuscript. Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Author JF developed and holds the intellectual property for the ‘COVID-Care’ application. (© The Author(s) 2021.) |
| Databáze: | MEDLINE |
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