- What should we think about triaging through telemedicine by a Digital Hospital ? ((a telemedicine experience in Sevilla, Spain)
- Is it a care provision model worth attempting ?
- What are its advantages and disadvantages ?
Advantages
- The good thing are short response times that the hospital unit may offer to primary care centers (PCP, GP, Family Doctor), impact on some clinical outcomes: the earlier the diagnosis, hence the earlier the treatment.
- It also improves patient access to outpatient specialist clinics, when deemed necessary by the triaging process of the digital hospital.
- Also, the interdisciplinary work that these sort of co-working facility (physical office which doctors of different specialties sitting and talking together) promotes interdisciplinary collaboration which helping to manage patients with multiple comorbidities.
- IT technicians also appreciate a dynamic setting up and monitoring of all the technology needed, hardware, software, networks…rather than offering solutions with little feedback….a computer here, a printer there !
Disadvantages
- The more convenient, the demand could increase:
- For specialists in the digital hospital.
- For PCPs once the patient becomes aware of the ease of access to a specialist opinion.
- the COVID pandemic is not favoring co-working based models.
David Roreno-Ramirez, MD. Everything started in Dermatology. 8th World Congress of Teledermatology, Skin Imaging and AI in Skin diseases – November 2020
