Feasibility of a Telemedicine Urgent Care Program to Address Patient Complaints on First Contact.
Journal
Emergency medicine international
ISSN: 2090-2840
Titre abrégé: Emerg Med Int
Pays: Egypt
ID NLM: 101567070
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
2020
2020
Historique:
received:
14
09
2020
revised:
16
10
2020
accepted:
19
10
2020
entrez:
12
11
2020
pubmed:
13
11
2020
medline:
13
11
2020
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Many health systems employ nurse telephone advice services to facilitate remote triage of patients to appropriate level of care. However, the effectiveness of these programs to reduce ED and subsequent health care utilization remains to be demonstrated. We describe a novel virtual urgent care program implemented within a Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system that interfaces with a nurse telephone advice line and leverages telemedicine tools to rapidly address and resolve nonemergent conditions. During a 4-month pilot period, 104 unique patients received care through the program, and over 85% of patients achieved timely resolution for their urgent complaints on first contact with the health care system. Demonstrating feasibility for such a program has potential implications for the optimization of remote triage and urgent care services to improve health care utilization and outcomes.
Identifiants
pubmed: 33178462
doi: 10.1155/2020/8875644
pmc: PMC7644327
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Pagination
8875644Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2020 Amy D. Lu et al.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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