‘Telecovid’ to Restrict Covid-19 Patients Admission in Hospital Using Vigilant Clinical Surveillance System: Our Experience

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 has forced us to alter, or perhaps it’s better said that we have had to adapt. Within the Indian context, telemedicine has the potential to extend access to quality healthcare for all Indians. New evidence and technological improvements in the Telecovid application were to spot the role of its services to screening, monitoring, and follow-up of the patients during the COVID-19 outbreak. Subjects and Methods: U. N. Mehta Institute of Cardiology and Research Center has developed “TELECOVID”. Platform with the help of HOPS by SLK Techlab, the software. Telecovid study was started from the second wave of COVID 19 pandemic from 20th April 2021 to 27th May 2021; 24x7 hours. Patients were treated on OPD and admission according to the institutional standard protocol which follows the guideline of the Indian Council of Medical Research. Results: Total 1249 COVID patients were attended in “COVID-19 screening OPD”. There were 729(58%) males and 520(42%) females. Out of 182 admitted patients, 168(92.31%) were discharged and 14(7.69%) were expired. More numbers of patients (83%) came from urban and only 17% were from the rural area. Comorbidities like hypertension were seen in a total of 97(7.77%), diabetes mellitus-II 52(4.16%) patients were suffered. Ischemic heart disease was seen in only 10(0.8%). Conclusion: There is an untapped opportunity to build our ‘UNM telemedicine’ application into a world-class teleconsultation platform. This is potential by incorporating it within the larger healthcare ecosystem that connects hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, laboratories, diagnostic centers, and doctors who deal with in-person consultations.