Telemedicine applications in emergency rooms
Citation: Ward MM, Jaana M, Natafgi N. Systematic review of telemedicine applications in emergency rooms. International Journal of Medical Informatics 2015; 84: 601
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What is this? The COVID-19 pandemic is placing a strain on healthcare systems. Existing research into the use of telemedicine applications in emergency rooms (ER) may provide information to help policy makers with this.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for research which assessed technical quality, user perceptions and clinical outcomes of tele-emergency applications such as simultaneous audio and video transmissions to connect clinicians with ER or to link small hospital ER with remote medical specialists or emergency departments with better resources. They restricted their search to articles published before September 2013. They included 38 articles, which were on telemedicine for patients presenting to an ER (11 studies), minor treatment clinics for patients with minor illnesses (8), and the use of telemedicine to connect providers in ER to medical specialists for consultations (19).
What was found: The image and teleconference quality in tele-medicine applications for use in emergency care was good.
Patient and clinician satisfaction with tele-medicine applications in emergency care was high and clinical outcomes were similar to those reported for routine practice.
At the time of the review, although tele-emergency applications seemed able to meet the needs of small and rural hospitals that require infrequent emergency specialist care, the effects for urban hospitals with overcrowded emergency departments were uncertain.