Search

Background: During the global COVID-19 pandemic, dermatologists increasingly adopted teledermatology to facilitate patient care., Objective: To identify differences in teledermatology platform usage and functionality among dermatologists as a means of understanding the potential effect on virtual healthcare access., Methods: Results from a 2021 cross-sectional pre-validated survey distributed to actively practicing United States dermatologists were analyzed based on timepoint when teledermatology was adopted relative to COVID-19, previous/currently used platforms, self-reported platform functionality, and barriers to teledermatology implementation. Analysis was performed using chi-square and odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for categorical data and single-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post-hoc Tukey-Kramer for continuous data. P<.05 was considered significant., Results: Early adopters (EAs) trialed significantly more (2.3 vs 1.9, P=0.02) platforms than (post) COVID adopters (CAs) before choosing their current platform. More EAs reported using platforms capable of uploading images (P=.002), required a mobile application (P=.006), and allowed staff to join patient encounters (P<.001). While poor image quality was the most cited barrier to implementation, CAs and non-adaptors (NAs) were materially more likely to cite it as their largest barrier to teledermatology., Limitations: The retrospective nature of the study and potential response bias., Conclusion: Dermatologists' use of teledermatology materially correlates with their teledermatology-adoption timepoint, and future usage may be materially impacted by the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Future studies should aim at how implementation and barriers to teledermatology usage may impact access to care. J Drugs Dermatol. 2024;23(2): doi:10.36849/JDD.7819e.

Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest None disclosed.

Objective: To describe and evaluate a risk-stratified triage pathway for inpatient urology consultations during the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. This pathway seeks to outline a urology patient care strategy that reduces the transmission risk to both healthcare providers and patients, reduces the healthcare burden, and maintains appropriate patient care.Materials and Methods: Consultations to the urology service during a 3-week period (March 16 to April 2, 2020) were triaged and managed via one of 3 pathways: Standard, Telemedicine, or High-Risk. Standard consults were in-person consults with non COVID-19 patients, High-Risk consults were in-person consults with COVID-19 positive/suspected patients, and Telemedicine consults were telephonic consults for low-acuity urologic issues in either group of patients. Patient demographics, consultation parameters and consultation outcomes were compared to consultations from the month of March 2019. Categorical variables were compared using Chi-square test and continuous variables using Mann-Whitney U test. A P value <.05 was considered significant.Results: Between March 16 and April 2, 2020, 53 inpatient consultations were performed. By following our triage pathway, a total of 19/53 consultations (35.8%) were performed via Telemedicine with no in-person exposure, 10/53 consultations (18.9%) were High-Risk, in which we strictly controlled the urology team member in-person contact, and the remainder, 24/53 consultations (45.2%), were performed as Standard in-person encounters. COVID-19 associated consultations represented 18/53 (34.0%) of all consultations during this period, and of these, 8/18 (44.4%) were managed successfully via Telemedicine alone. No team member developed COVID-19 infection.Conclusion: During the COVID-19 pandemic, most urology consultations can be managed in a patient and physician safety-conscious manner, by implementing a novel triage pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]