Telemedicine for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic
Citation: Taha A, Saad B, Enodien B, et al. The development of telemedicine and eHealth in surgery during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021;18(22):11969.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: No external funding.
What is this? In this systematic review, the authors searched for articles on the use of telemedicine and eHealth, with a specific emphasis on surgical care in Europe, the United States, and Switzerland. They searched in 2021 for peer-reviewed articles published in English. The authors found 58 articles.
What was found: Use of telemedicine increased in many medical specialties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many surgical procedures were cancelled due to the pandemic. Telemedicine was used to contact patients, who gave positive feedback about it. The adoption of telemedicine depends on country-specific factors, such as access to technology and allocation of resources. None of the studies found that telemedicine caused poor patient outcomes.
Implications: The authors stated that telemedicine played an important role during the COVID-19 pandemic and may continue to do so. Additional research is required to realise the benefits of telemedicine and to address the challenges of this approach.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of place of residence.
This summary was written by Joly Ghanawi, checked by Sydney Johnson and finalized by William Summerskill.