From Journal Feed (lonk: https://journalfeed.org/article-a-day/2024/could-teleconsultation-reduce-pediatric-transfers/):
Spoon Feed
This retrospective study found that of the 4,446 patients transferred over a 4.5-year period, 1,509 (34%) transfers could have possibly been avoided by utilizing telehealth/teleconsultation, with the most common transfer complaints being abdominal pain, asthma, and cough.
Burden, myth, or a real opportunity?
Numbers of pediatric patient transfers have been increasing, adding to the burden of already overcrowded pediatric emergency departments. This study took all transfers from one hospital system and split them into low resource intensity and high resource intensity visits and then reviewed and trended all the cases to determine if they could have avoided transfer by utilizing telehealth or teleconsultation services.
Almost 1 in 10 (9%) of the transfers met low-resource intensity per their review. Of the analyzed non-low-resource intensity cases, the biggest opportunities to mitigate transfers included the availability of specialty consultants and resources (imaging/labs). It is in this subset that the authors felt there could be a vital role of teleconsultation to mitigate these potential transfers.
Comments