COVID-19 Reducing the Risks: Telemedicine is the New Norm for Surgical Consultations and Communications

Abstract

Introduction COVID-19, a worldwide pandemic, has enforced a national lockdown in the UK which produced a paradigm shift about the way medical practitioners would perform consultations and communication with their patients. Senior authors realised that in lockdown there was only one option to see a patient: virtual consultation via telecommunication technologies. This paper will discuss the current benefits and considerations of Telemedicine, particularly in plastic surgery, to decipher the next route of action to further validate its use for future implementation. Method A detailed literature review was carried out comparing papers from 1992 to 2020. A survey of 122 consultant plastic surgeons found an encouraging result as 70% positively embraced the suggestion of Telemedicine in their current practice. Discussion Telemedicine produced equal or improved patient satisfaction. Its utilisation reduced cost for patient, clinic and consultant. With accessibility to a large percentage of the population, Telemedicine enables infection control and adherence to social distancing during COVID-19. Considerations include dependability on internet access, legal aspects, cyber security and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the inability to perform palpation or physical inspection and psychological impacts on the patient. Conclusion In modern times, Telemedicine has become more accessible and COVID-19 has made it more applicable than ever before. More in-depth research is needed for validation of this technique within plastic surgery. While maintaining quality of care and a vital role in social distancing, there is a strong need for standardisation of Telemedicine processes, platforms, encryption and data storage. Level of Evidence V This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

Integrating telemedicine to support digital health care for the management of COVID-19 pandemic

“…Findings from this study highlight that telemedicine is important and can be adopted to support the treatment of patients during and after the pandemic. This finding is similar to the results from Gillman-Wells et al [1] which indicate that telemedicine inherently saves time and reduces cost and is proved to be beneficial to both patients and medical practitioners. In addition, findings from the literature [29] reveal that patients are currently looking for digital care; this is based on evidence from recent surges reported by telemedicine providers.…”

“…Online questionnaires were used to collect information from high-risk travelers. With this measure low-risk residents were automatically sent a medical announcement border pass, while high-risk people were asked to self-quarantined at home and are remotely monitored for any symptoms using mobile device applications [1,20,42].…”

“…The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in lockdown across the world which, in turn, has caused a paradigm shift on how medical practitioners communicate and consult with their patients [1]. Due to lockdowns and restrictions within countries medical practitioners are now adopting virtual consultation via telecommunication technologies for the treatment of patients [2,3].…”

“…Telemedicine, which was introduced in the early twentieth century, involves the use of telecommunication and online technologies, including mobile devices and computers for delivery of health care or services [9]. It can be employed remotely over the phone or via real-time video consultations using an interactive two-way telecommunications system [1,2,10]. Historically, telemedicine has been previously used to provide health care in rural areas remotely [11].…”

Touch-ups, Rejuvenation, Re-dos and Revisions: Remote Communication and Cosmetic Surgery on the Rise

“…The year anniversary since the first cases of SARS-COV-2 were detected in Europe now sees the vast majority of us interacting with others through some form of video conferencing be it for teaching purposes [ 1 ], research conferences or business meetings to name but a few. There has of course also been a rise in the use of telemedicine and teleconsultations [ 2 – 4 ] with a view to maintaining social distancing and reducing the spread of the virus and its variant mutations within hospital complexes.…”