Reinventing Patient Support and Continuity of Care Using Innovative Physician-staffed Hotline: More than 60,000 Patients Served Across 15 Medical and Surgical Specialties During the First Wave of COVID-19 Lockdown in Qatar

Abstract Rising disease prevalence early during the COVID-19 pandemic in the State of Qatar led to stoppage of all non-emergency health care services. To maintain continuity of care and information exchanges for non-emergency patients, a physician-operated telephone hotline was set up that involved triage followed by immediate consultation with a specialized physician. We describe the initiation and evaluate the operations of the Urgent Consultation Centre (UCC) hotline manned by 150 physicians and aimed at urgent non-life-threatening consultations at Hamad Medical Corporation, the public health provider in Qatar. UCC established a hotline to triage inbound patient calls related to 15 medical and surgical specialties. For calls between April-August 2020, we describe call volume, distribution by specialty, outcomes, performance of UCC team, as well as demographics of callers. During the study period, UCC received 60229 calls (average 394 calls/day) from Qatari nationals (38%) and expatriates (62%). Maximum total daily calls peaked at 1670 calls on June 14, 2020. Call volumes were the highest from 9 AM to 2 PM. Response rate varied from 89% to 100%. After an initial telephone triage, calls were most often related to and thus directed to internal medicine (24.61%) and geriatrics (11.97%), while the least percentage of calls were for pain management and oncology/hematology (around 2% for each). By outcome of consultation, repeat prescriptions were provided for 60% of calls, new prescriptions (15%), while referrals were to outpatient department (17%), emergency department/pediatric emergency center (5%), and primary health care centres (3%). We conclude that during a pandemic, physician-staffed telephone hotline is feasible and can be employed in innovative ways to conserve medical resources, maintain continuity of care, and serve patients requiring urgent care..

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2023

Erschienen:

2023

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:47

Enthalten in:

Journal of medical systems - 47(2023), 1 vom: 19. Juli

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Arafa, Mohamed [VerfasserIn]
El Ansari, Walid [VerfasserIn]
Qasem, Fadi [VerfasserIn]
Al Ansari, Abdulla [VerfasserIn]
Al Dosari, Mohammed Al Ateeq [VerfasserIn]
Mukhtar, Khalid [VerfasserIn]
Alhabash, Mohamed Ali [VerfasserIn]
Awad, Khalid [VerfasserIn]
Al Rumaihi, Khalid [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext [kostenfrei]

BKL:

44.00$jMedizin: Allgemeines

Themen:

Helpline
Hotline
Innovation
Quality of health care
Telehealth
Telemedicine
Triage
Utilization
Virtual care

Anmerkungen:

© The Author(s) 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

doi:

10.1007/s10916-023-01973-w

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

OLC2144556342

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