Telemedicine and Computer-Based Technologies during Coronavirus Disease 2019 Infection; A Chance to Educate and Diagnose

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is now of global concern due to its rapid dissemination across the globe. The rapid spread of this viral infection, along with many of its unknown aspects, has posed new challenges to the health care systems. The main challenging effects of COVID-19 are rapid dissemination through close contact and varying clinical severity among different individuals. Furthermore, the medical staff in endemic areas are becoming exhausted and deal with a considerable level of job burnout, which can negatively affect their medical decision making. Also, due to the variable pulmonary manifestations of COVID-19, some physicians may misdiagnose patients. To overcome these issues, we proposed a web-based software to aid physicians in detecting possible COVID-19 cases through online consultation with different specialists and educate the not-well experienced physicians. Our results demonstrated that this software could improve the diagnostic rate for not-well experienced physicians.

Mapping the Role of Digital Health Technologies in Prevention and Control of COVID-19 Pandemic: Review of the Literature

“…To highlight the importance of effective disease control and contact tracing, to reducing the pressure on the medical staff and health care workers, to improve their medical judgment and performance abilities, and to educate physicians and other health professionals who have not previously encountered COVID-19 cases and who are not familiar with the clinical and radiological presentations of the disease [ 28 ];…”

“…Using electronic health record components such as screening protocols, system-level EHR-templates, COVID-19 operational dashboards, and communication channels, rapid screening processes, and laboratory testing, clinical decision support, and patient-facing technology related to COVID-19 were achieved [ 6 , 13 ]. Digital health technologies such as telemedicine network virtual care platforms and cloud-based hardware helped strengthen the checkpoints on the full chain of COVID-19 control, including “early test, early report, early isolation, and early treatment” during the outbreak [ 25 , 28 , 31 ].…”

“…It also increased other clinical care and healthcare operations access during COVID-19 [ 17 , 18 ]. Developing telemedicine platforms by using web-based software reduced close contact of health care providers with the patient, minimized exhaustion and burnout of care providers, and minimized misdiagnosis of COVID suspected cases [ 23 , 28 ].…”

“…Of the 22 included studies 13 (59%) of them were from the USA [6,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], three were from China [25][26][27], two were from Iran [28,29] , Australia [16], Spain [30], Canada [31], and Taiwan [32] each contributed one (Table 2). The use of digital health technologies to combat COVID-19 was predominantly reported by North American studies (64%), followed by Asia (27%).…”

“…The application of web-based software reduces close contact of health care providers with the patient Minimize burnout of care providers Minimize mis diagnosis of COVID suspected cases By using such telemedicine platforms, the experience of the specialists will be provided for every suspicious patient in every unequipped center manifestation using telemedicine [6,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][27][28][29][30][31], and electronic health records [13,14,26,32]. Less frequently used technologies include artificial intelligence [6,13], 5G+ [6,25], and the Internet of Things [6] (Table 2).…”