Introducing the Video call to facilitate the communication between health care providers and families of patients in the intensive care unit during COVID-19 pandemia

Opportunities to improve COVID-19 provider communication resources: A systematic review

“…Recommendations for goals of care discussions were highlighted [ 52 , 97 , 77 ] and included end-of-life context [ 78 ], dialysis decision-making [ 79 ], family-centered care [ 70 ], and diabetes [ 73 ]. Published articles about telehealth focused on use in the intensive care unit [ 83 ], surgery [ 84 ], cancer care [ 74 , 76 , 104 ], and palliative care [ 77 ] and centered on social connectedness [ 57 ].…”

“…Physicians in Switzerland interacted with elderly patients with hearing aids who had difficulty understanding masked voices [ 93 ]. A second communication barrier during the COVID-19 pandemic is that patients are anxious and fearful because they are left alone to face illness and their family cannot be physically present [ 52 , 53 , 58 , 64 , 73 , 77 , 79 , 82 , 83 , 85 , 88 , 89 ]. For example, COVID-19 patients with a diagnosis of end stage renal failure were challenged to make dialysis decisions without their family members present to help comprehend language and provide emotional support [ 79 ].…”

Strict isolation requires a different approach to the family of hospitalised patients with COVID-19: A rapid qualitative study

“…To overcome this barrier, communication training is strongly advised ( Rubinelli et al., 2020 , Back et al., 2020 ). Instructions and tools to support the communication between healthcare professionals, patients and their families using telecommunications have been recently published ( Flint and Kotwal, 2020 , Calton et al., 2020 , Negro et al., 2020 ) and can be used to develop local protocols. Most of these (expert opinion based) instructions are congruent with the recommendations based on our research.…”

Nursing workload in the COVID-19 era

“…The ICU nursing care process has also been affected by: increased availability of evidence-based nursing knowledge; patient care innovations (e.g. decreasing sedation, delirium monitoring, early mobilisation and respiratory/cardiac extracorporeal support); open ICU policies/guidelines and the use of new communication technologies, such as video-calling with patient’s relatives ( Negro et al, 2020 ).…”

“…In addition to the severity of illness, the nursing workload increased because of the need to provide humanistic care in the absence of family. The introduction of mobile phone calls ( Negro et al, 2020 ) also helped patients to mitigate their sense of isolation and keep them and their relatives updated, about what is happening outside and inside “ the hospital walls ”. When people affected by COVID-19 enter the hospital, they literally disappear from their relatives' lives.…”