Telegenetics: The experience of an Indian center (Centre for Human Genetics) during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, access to health services of all kinds has been severely challenged everywhere. Medical professionals in all specializations including genetic medicine have struggled to keep their services going. Our center, located in Bengaluru, is a tertiary clinic offering genetic services to approximately 2000 families annually. We have adopted telegenetics as a means of connecting with patient families during these difficult times. We describe here our experience in providing telegenetic services and highlight some of the advantages and challenges. After consultation, 293 consultands consented to give feedback about their satisfaction with telegenetics. They were interviewed by telephone using a 9-item structured questionnaire-The Telehealth Satisfaction Scale (TeSS scale).

The growing needs of genetic counselling—Feasibility in utilization of tele-genetic counselling in Asia and Hong Kong

“…However, they preferred in-person GC for first (79.4%) and TGC for follow-up (60.6%) visits rather than telemedicine as an entire alternative model. A study from India also reported that 87% of the patients were satisfied with TGC services, but 74% of them preferred face-toface appointment (Rao et al, 2021).…”

Telegenetics aids the diagnosis of Hunter syndrome caused due to a novel IDS variant in rural India, during COVID-19 pandemic

“…Several studies have been published globally about the impact of the pandemic on genetic services. [1][2][3][4][5] A review on telegenetic services showed high acceptability for it in underserved communities, with reduced travel and costeffectivity being major advantages. With a critical shortage of genetic experts in the country, combined with a mammoth population of 1.3 billion, over half of whom live in rural areas, there is very little scope for access to genetic services.…”